tidbit of the day – Ulrich Reithofer and current obsession

The following is an excerpt from an interview given by Marina Elenskaya of Current Obsession and artist Ulrich Reithofer

C.O: What would be the definition for you: I’m a contemporary artist, I’m a jeweller, I’m a craftsman.

U.R.: I am contemporary because I’m now. And I’m a jeweller because thats what I’m aiming for, is to be carried away, taken with someone. That the work is possibly given as a present with meaning of something related to jewellery: birthday, wedding, engagement… I just made a ring for a new born baby and his mother and this is how I’m a jeweller.

C.O: Why did you choose jewellery as a medium? Why not expressing yourself through sculpture?

U.R.: Well, I anyway do sculpture, because a ring is a sculpture, brooch is a sculpture, parts of a necklace are always sculptural. But sculpture is based on the ground, there is a relation to the human body in size, but it is based somewhere and stays there. The jewellery is somehow worn and at a certain moment comes to the body and creates this personal relation with the body, it communicates only through the body. And the sculpture would not do that.

C.O.: So the act of wear is important for you, its not to be sitting in the box or hang on the wall?

U.R.: It is OK for me, but the object that I make, this sculpture has to imply the use. Even if its not wearable, even if it hurts when worn, then there is a statement about the non-wearability. But the human relation that lies in dimension to the body is important.

C.O.: About the work itself, how it looks now and what it embodies, how did you come to this?

U.R.: Its about putting things in a different prospective. Say, the chair, we know it as a furniture object in the room. What happens to the object in the room when its worn on the body?
Its the irritation that communicates. I think jewellery has to irritate to work. It has to be something that does not physically belong to you. It is not a pimple on your thumb, or a scratch on your cheek. It is something strange, but then does it communicate? Sometimes it just doesn’t. But sometimes someone will ask: “Why does she wear a fucking chair?!” That would mean I achieved my goal – I started a communication.

the rest of the interview can be seen —> here