Karl Fritsch: last call for NZWN

Artist list

Karl Fritsch

Taken from from a conversation of Klaus Bürgel with Karl Fritsch

KB
But those(brooches) have an opening. Their ends are exposed. But the Loops do not let you out. If you are in it, you are caught. They come across as very wearable and jewellery-like. But when you get into it, they take you to a really dark place.
KF
That I find really fascinating, and one of the reasons why it’s so interesting to make something that comes across as a cute and pretty little thing that on a second glimpse has no mercy and takes no hand in front of the mouth. Probably it does not work better in any other métier than jewellery where politeness and cold-blooded anger clash mercilessly into one another.
KB
I agree. It is a medium that has not been touched for a long period of time. That is how I look at your work. To me it has a lot to do with a subversive humor. And I’m fascinated because your jewellery is exactly the way you are as a person. But if you look closer, one notices that there is more to it than just jewellery. That a very simple gesture of drilling a hole into the stone makes one wonder: Why is the stone only precious when it is whole or the ring only of value when the stone can be seen but not when it is, god knows where, embedded in a heap of silver? At some point it is not about what you see but what the jewelry is talking about. Of course it is jewelry. Of course it is a drawing. Of course it is a sculpture. But at the end it is just a visualization of an idea.