Peter Bauhuis / Chains and Flowers
Gallery Loupe is proud to present Chains and Flowers, a very special exhibition of new, along with seminal, works by master German goldsmith Peter Bauhuis. Casting is the method of choice for Bauhuis. The tactile surfaces of his jewelry and vessels are rough and uneven, revealing the ghosts of the molds that gave them life. Bauhuis utilizes silver, gold, copper, and zinc, oftentimes creating alloys, which produce uniquely colored shapes and sketches on the objects’ surface. His works are primal, sensual, and talismanic – inviting touch, fondling. The void is as imperative as the form; brooches and bowls sometimes have holes; the hollow backs of brooches may reveal an inner rhyzomatic web that symbolizes, for Bauhuis, the interconnectedness of ideas, making, and things.
Bauhuis has been inspired by blobs and orifices, so-naming respective series. He sometimes channels natural phenomena such as Physalia – jellyfish that drift along the surfaces of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans or Armillaria Mellea – the honey fungus whose characteristic mushrooms sprout from huge underground and, consequently, unseen networks. The necklaces and brooches of Freshly Modelled flaunt highly sculptural surfaces that emphasize the process of hand-modelling. Just as Armillaria Mellea glow in the dark, Peter Bauhuis’ jewelry glows in the light.
Trained as a goldsmith in Hanau, Bauhuis received his graduate diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied with Otto Künzli. He was the recipient of the grand prize at the 17th Silver Triennial in Hanau (2013); Bavarian State Award (2011); Danner Merit Award, Munich (2008); and Friedrich Becker Prize, Dusseldorf (2005). He has been the subject of numerous international solo and group exhibitions, and his jewelry and vessels are represented in many public collections including Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim; Die Neue Sammlung, Munich; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Basel; and Fonds national d’art contemporain, Paris.
Chains and Flowers
Bauhuis’ playful, ironic take on semantics is evident when he speaks of Chains and Flowers, chained and unchained. Chains can be interpreted to mean fetters or jewelry. When chains and flowers are mentioned in the same breath, the semantic pendulum swings towards fetters for the former, while the latter conjures notions of peace and freedom. The antithetical word pair chained and unchained also suggests moments of bondage and freedom. The title Chains and Flowers, chained and unchained, alludes to a transformational process by which a necklace is born of a plant-like gold structure. To make jewelry of chained oval links, Bauhuis crafted molds whose individual parts resemble orbital trajectories that, taken as a whole, suggest trees and flowers. The unchaining liberates this chain from its existence as a cast orbital plant, transforming it into a necklace. Even so, the chained state is by no means preferable to the unchained condition. As long as the intricate chain forms an orbital sculpture that has the potential of becoming a necklace, it is both a tree and, conceptually, a chain — Heinz Schütz
Read entire text by Monica Gaspar in Metalsmith/Peter Bauhuis: In Praise of Curiosity.
CHAINS AND FLOWERS: Peter Bauhuis can be viewed at Gallery Loupe (www.galleryloupe.com), 50 Church Street, Montclair, New Jersey 07042 from Oct. 21 – Nov.18, 2017. An artist reception will be held on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017 from 6-8pm. Join us for a talk by Peter Bauhuis at Brooklyn Metal Works, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017 7 pm 640 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY. For more info: 347-762-4757 or info@bkmetalworks.com
In addition, Bauhuis will be conducting a 4-day workshop at Brooklyn Metal Works, Oct. 23 – 26, 2017.
For more information. http://bkmetalworks.com/2017/08/29/iso-incredible-strange-object-with-peter-bauhuis/