Victoire de Castellane, whom I recently wrote about in The Talk of the Town, and whose show, “Precious Objects,” is on view at the Gagosian Gallery through April 26th, takes liberties with the conventions of precious-jewelry design. Her work is inspired by her free associations. These thoughts about it are inspired by my own.
“Amanita Satana Diabolus,” 2010. Over-all dimensions of necklace with base: 5 x 12.25 x 8.25 inches (15 x 31 x 2.5 cm). (c) Victoire de Castellane. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Erwan Frotin.
- This sublimely trippy necklace makes me think of Tom Wolfe’s classic road-trip saga of 1968, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” (De Castellane was six when it was published.) It also evokes the book’s cover, by the great Milton Glaser, who, at eighty-five, has designed the psychedelic art work for Season 7 of “Mad Men, which premières on Sunday.” Wouldn’t Megan look great in this?
“Opiom Velourosa Purpra,” 2010. Over-all dimensions of necklace with base: 5 x 8.75 x 8.5 inches (13 x 22 x 21.5 cm). (c) Victoire de Castellane. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Erwan Frotin.
- You could always wear “Opiom” with a black dress (boring), but it would be more fun with an original Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket (1966), over a bare torso, of course, and a generous spritz of his scent “Opium” (1977), which was introduced with the ad slogan Pour celles qui s’adonnent à Yves Saint Laurent, (“For the women addicted to Yves Saint Laurent.”) The launch raised a public outcry against its apparent glamorization of drug use, a “menace” that destroyed millions of lives, and “insensitivity” to Chinese history. (De Castellane says that she thinks of drugs as a metaphor for imaginative intoxication but doesn’t need them.) The scent became a best-seller, and the launch party took place on a Chinese junk in New York Harbor. Oh well. Dorothy’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” would also go nicely with the tuxedo and the necklace. (Did Christian Louboutin get his idea for the red soles on his shoes from Dorothy?) Remember the scary poppy-field scene in the movie? I didn’t get it at the time.
“Cana Bisextem Now,” 2010. Over-all dimensions of bracelet with base: 3.125 x 5.25 x 4.25 inches (8 x 13.1 x 10.9 cm). (c) Victoire de Castellane. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Erwan Frotin.
- This is definitely the farthest out of de Castellane’s fantastical pieces. It represents the glowing tip of a joint, and its setting is meant to evoke a Vietnamese jungle clearing whose palm trees have been flattened by the turbulence from a helicopter. It might also have been called Apocalypso Nymphetamania Now.
“Lunae Lumen Satine Mummy Blue,” 2013. Over-all dimensions of necklace with base: 2.6 x 6.31 x 8.69 inches (7 x 16 x 22 cm). (c) Victoire de Castellane. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Vito Flamminio.
- Up close, the body of the serpent is meticulously and minutely hand-incised with lifelike scales, the work of an exceptional artisan. Snakes, de Castellane notes, are a recurring motif in jewelry from ancient times. Her father once gave her a jewelry box with a plastic snake bracelet inside that she treasured as a little girl.
“Lunae Lumen Glitter Blue,” 2013. 3.56 x 2.75 x 3.94 inches (9 x 7 x 10 cm). (c) Victoire de Castellane. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Vito Flamminio.
- Moonlight = madness, femininity, tides, a midsummer night’s dreams, and vampires. The French have an apt noun/adjective for this jewel: féerique, which means “something of marvellous beauty, or a theatrical work that involves fairies, genies, etc., and/or an enchanted landscape.”
“Lunae Lumen Satine Baby Blue,” 2013. Over-all dimensions of ring with base: 2.38 x 1.56 x 1.56 inches (6 x 4 x 4 cm). (c) Victoire de Castellane. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Vito Flamminio.
- Here we have a snake basking on a rock, perhaps to the music of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” (The moon is the sapphire, and its silvery glow is the circlet of diamonds.) The rock it rests on is modelled after the boulders in the monkey house at the Paris zoo in the Bois de Vincennes. Owl monkeys, in case you didn’t know, need moonlight for their nocturnal monkey business.
All the pedestals are integral to the design of the jewels. The idea, de Castellane says, is that the jewels become objects of contemplation—free association?— when you’re not wearing them.