Glenn Adamson BERNHARD SCHOBINGER The Rings of Saturn 288 pages, 14 x 20 cm, 510 illustrations in colour and some in b/w. Hardback with American dust jacket an artist's book! English. 39.80 [D] US$ 70 35 ISBN 978-3-89790-402-6 BERNHARD SCHOBINGER The Rings of Saturn The fi nger ring is a familiar cultural artefact in our society: it can bear the coveted diamond or be a sign of union. Not so with Bernhard Schobinger! From his objects of the last forty-fi ve years, artistic as well as societal developments can be deduced. The ring as contemporary witness: Concrete art, the Punk aesthetic, postmodernism and more. Like all avant-gardists, Schobinger pursues the expansion of his own artistic genre, subverts their traditional norms wearability, value and subjects them to a radical reappraisal. Schobinger was led astray, in particular by the shift of social and aesthetic paradigms in the Punk movement at the beginning of the 1970s, to an almost reckless working practice that broke countless taboos. He migrated from the usual valuable materials, preferring instead to feature others that showed the emotional content or the conceptual worth he sought. The objects created at that time provoked strong reactions, even hostility. Yet they have proved to be infl uential on style and have deeply shaped subsequent generations of jewellery artists. The basic concept of the 272-page book is an overview of almost all the rings that Bernhard Schobinger has created over the last forty-fi ve years. It is designed as a reference work and documents nearly half a decade of the Swiss object artist s design and creative power. In short accompa- Have you seen our online press portal? There you will fi nd the covers, images and press releases of our new publications available to download. You can also leaf through our books on our website. We look forward to your visit. www.arnoldsche.com/en/press nying texts, Schobinger himself explains the evolutionary history of many of his objects and his very personal artistic motivation for them. The reader can also gain additional insight into the creative process in the form of sketches and pages from his original notebook. Bernhard Schobinger (winner of the Grand Prix Design 2007) is one of the most provocative, critical and artistically inspiring contemporary jewellery artists. He has revolutionised his profession. Through the eschewal of traditional jewels, he deprives jewellery of its function as a status symbol, making it a tool of expression within a universal critical language. Exhibition: Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (UK), until 19 October 2014 www.manchestergalleries.org For more information or free review copies, please do not hesitate to contact us: Winfried Stürzl presse@arnoldsche.com ARNOLDSCHE Art Publishers Liststraße 9, D 70180 Stuttgart Fon +49 (0)711 64 56 18 14 Fax 79 www. arnoldsche.com page 1
S_80 Infi nite Loop in Two Tapering Wedged Colours, 1970, in 18ct white gold and gold as a wedding ring for a friend who is a mathematician (one of two). S_82 Little Snail Horns Ring, 1969, white gold, chalcedony. S_96 Fourfold Twisted Ring, 1978, FE /BS, cast cobalt, enamel. S_123 Lipstick Ring, 1970, pale gold, carnelian, fewer than six made. Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland, gift of Sonja Graber. www. arnoldsche.com page 2
S_133 Bull s Head Ring, 1977, 18ct gold, cast onto iron, two brilliant-cut diamonds. S_136 Lime Flower Ring II, 1977, FE /BS, 18ct gold, patina. S_138 Woven Straw Ring, 1978, unknown. FE /BS, gold. Tilla Theus Collection, Zurich. S_161 Kiss My Skull Ring, 2001, 18ct gold, rose-cut diamonds, enamel. Ildegarda Scheidegger Collection, Zurich. As wedding rings: Till death do you part! www. arnoldsche.com page 3
S_177 Impact Ring, 2002, 18ct white gold, bronze, cubic zirconia, malachite. Helen Williams Drutt-Stern Collection, Philadelphia. S_178 Car Crash, 2008, 18ct gold, enamel, diamond splinter in bronze. Another example of representing momentum. The wheels of the vehicle are mounted so that they are movable. S_182 Sun Face Ring, 2005, 18ct gold, enamel, Akoya pearls, black diamonds in white gold. Gallery S O, London. S_183 Gold Mary s Nightmare, 2012, 18ct gold, fi ne gold, malachite. Purchased by Helen Drutt-Stern for The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia. Five different bars of fi ne gold are stuck like projectiles in marshy ground. www. arnoldsche.com page 4
S_200 Man in the Universe, 2006, Japanese Akoya pearls, freshwater pearls, faceted diamond polyhedron, gold, chromium steel, brass. Frei-Ehrensperger Collection, Zurich. S_246 Snake Ring, 2008, 18ct gold, diamond, malachite pigment, cinnabarite pigment, cultured pearl from Iseshima, Japan. Private collection, England. www. arnoldsche.com page 5