Ted Noten and Jantje Fleischhut in Ornamentum Exhibition at Design Miami

Wed, Dec 2 - Sun, Dec 6  2015

At this years Design Miami/, Ornamentum will be presenting work from, among others, Jantje Fleischhut and Ted Noten. Chosen for the Cooper Hewitt Museum Design Triennial in early 2016, Jantje Fleischhut’s necklaces combine found and cast resins and foams, sculpted like other-worldly minerals, together with silver and stone. Also, a choice selection of Ted Noten works will be exhibited, including a brand new bag finished just in time for Design Miami.

About Jantje Fleischhut

Jantje Fleischhut travels around in universe. The take-off has its origin in a large collection of old found plastic; mounts of discoloured pieces sorted by colour serve the artist as an archive with an enormous values. Opening the drawers give joy and inspiration in form and colour. The fascination and predilection for plastic material let arise jewellery in her hands. Using strictly found objects in the beginning, the need to create own shapes, to be independent from already exciting plastic forms grew strongly. At that time Fleischhut started an intense material research. Since then one part of her workshop resembles strongly a laboratory; the other contains a classical goldsmith bench. The workstation to operate with toxic material is equally important to the one to handle gold. Precious metal and plastic is treated with the same care and attention. For Fleischhut both materials are completely equal in value. With unflagging zeal she explores the possibilities of integrating plastic and precious metals in her work to visualize her interest in space travelling and communication. Her sensitive constructions bring the bright glisten of the moon just a little closer.

Since her work in Hamurg thinking about multiples attracts Fleischhut. Sometimes developing a multiple inspires for a unique piece or the other way around. Thinking about both keeps a vibrant workflow in her studio. The multiple works embrace the same precision and accuracy then her unique pieces. The elements are casted by hand; rubber moulds facilitate the production process. Mixing the liquid material to cast each piece separate and the use of pigments gives Fleischhut the possibility to play and precisely utilize the wide range of colours. Colours are very important for her. Biking along a yellow letterbox in a grey wall clearly captures Fleischhut’s attention. The colour impressions tease and in the end coincide with great sensitivity in her jewellery. The colours it self as well as the combinations make even a multiple pieces of Fleischhut unique again.

About Ted Noten

Ted Noten’s designs act as a critique on contemporary life and on the history of jewellery, as well as on the wider context of product design. Interestingly, his work equally relates to architecture. The underlying, recurring, theme of his work is to challenge convention and processes of habitation, the familiar and the unusual.

His oeuvre gains in depth from his idiosyncratic response to the apparent familiarity of our daily surroundings, whether this be a market street in Amsterdam, the explosion of building construction in Shanghai, or a gang of road sweepers at work in a provincial town in Russia. By lifting symbols from their everyday surroundings and placing them in a new context, he doesn’t so much query the symbol itself as our perception of it. Ted Noten looks for fixed meanings in the banal and the cultivated. He debunks their essence, then reinvents them back into reality. In affecting and infecting symbolic values the actually reveales their unmistakable intangibility.

Many of his recent most works are parts of larger project in which Noten investigates familiar themes like violence, mortality, greed, love and ageing. But he also turned his attention to the means of production that are not only influencing contemporary notions of mass production, but also the domain of craftsmanship. The attempt to include reproductions (and even reproductions of reproductions) into his body of work seems to point to a new direction in his designs, and in contemporary culture as a whole.

About Design Miami/

Design Miami/ is the global forum for design. Each fair brings together the most influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators and critics from around the world in celebration of design culture and commerce. Occurring alongside the Art Basel fairs in Miami, USA each December and Basel, Switzerland each June, Design Miami/ has become the premier venue for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating collectible design.