Karl Fritsch : Rings Without End

"There is always a reason to make a ring. But I can also make a ring without a reason."

Karl Fritsch has been primarily making rings since 1992, apart from an occasional other piece of jewellery in between. He works on dozens of rings simultaneously, moving between them, starting a new ring whenever a fresh idea appears.

Fritsch likes the format, the ability to try a ring on and see it immediately as he is working on it. "It's made with your hands and worn on your hands," he says. "It's so close to how it's produced."

The jewellery in Rings Without End is some of Fritsch's newest work, espousing his playful and idiosyncratic approach to his materials. Rusty steel nails embrace a garnet in one ring, while in others jewels are embedded deep within the silver or gold, at times almost engulfed, compelling us to look and look again. The audacious concept of combining the provocatively unorthodox with traditional skills associated with jewellery history, the precious with the found, is central to Fritsch's jewellery practice. Fritsch is interested in this juxtaposition of the prized and the prosaic, complicating our notion of the ring.