F7 Jewellery: Ivan Venkov : King’s Folly

Monday, October 31, 2011

Ivan Venkov : King’s Folly

King’s Folly is a project by Ivan Venkov based on the ideas of polarity and exploitation, the composition polarizes the pure natural element, which resonates in black sculpt of the deer and the golden manifestation of allegorical cabinet, which aggregates elements of mundane ravishment.

The statement of the object is partially based on the novel of Joris-Karl Huysmans

“A Rebours defines the decadent spirit as one of simulation-that the idea of a thing is purer-and therefore more desirable-than the thing itself. This is best illustrated in one of the most famous chapters where, after a lengthy reverie into the merits of various gemstones, Des Esseintes decides that the best way to display his favourite jewels would be to have them set into the shell of a living tortoise. The jeweller finally returns with the encrusted tortoise, which takes about two steps and dies from the immense weight of the stones. The entire decadent movement was imbibed with this sense of embellishing and improving the natural, and no single book encapsulates the decadent/symbolist aesthetic like A Rebours.”

Ivan writes “The natural element presented in the deer does not fight the artificial parasitic presence of the golden cabinet. It’s statement is infinite quietness. The golden drills extract life from the living creature, providing necessary resources for the golden cabinet.

Reminiscence of a “Fabergé” egg sitting in the golden nest. Fabergé eggs are considered to be a pinnacle of luxury items, apart from rarely embedded functional elements, they are a created only for the purpose of visual appeal and sense of luxury.
Under the nest, there is a visual reminiscence of “machine” like appeal executed in chrome, that contributes to the visually artificial parasitic presence of the whole golden cabinet corpus, thus creating the image of squandering, cold machinery.

He continues “Another part of the machinery, that seems to be behind creating the mushy fluid around the golden cabinet. The entering is meant for a coin to enter. However, there is a strong presence of a sexual context, making a very human point of the whole golden cabinet machinery. The wealth and pleasure are in conjuction.”