Eighteen Carat Gold Contemporary Skull Ring Claude Lévêque

About the Item

Totentanz Ring by Claude Lévêque France, 2015 Height 21 mm., exterior width of hoop 22 mm., bezel 34 x 20 mm., circumference 57.15 mm. Weight 4.8 gr., US size 8, UK size Q This delicate ring in polished eighteen-carat gold has a hoop with D-section which forks at the shoulder on one side and on the other is slightly thicker at the end to support the openwork bezel. The bezel takes the form of an abstract image of a head shaped from wire. Inside the hoop along the shoulder is the engraved signature, “Claude Lévêque,” and the edition number, “2/10.” On the exterior of the hoop is the French warranty mark for gold with an eagle facing to the right. Using wire to form a ring goes back to extremely early experiments with rings, such as the Bronze Age Spiral Ring, and it was also a technique favored by Viking and Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths. For these societies, metal provided all the material needed to fashion a ring. Here, in the modern age, metal is twisted to form a figurative image instead of a geometric one, an animated skull that recalls the “Dance of Death,” an allegory of the omnipresence of death, its inevitability, and the vanities of the present life. The Dance of Death first appeared in the arts in the fifteenth century and illustrated people of all ranks of society. That allegorical tradition echoes powerfully in this modern ring. Informed by his closeness to the punk movement and other alternative cultures, the ring’s designer, Claude Lévêque (born 1953, in Nevers, France), directs his art to question the blind acceptance of the established order. With its abstracted evocation of a skull, this ring partakes in a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century offshoot of the Dance of Death tradition, in which skulls and other motifs (such as rotten fruit, hourglasses, and even flowers or butterflies) functioned as symbols of vanitas (Latin for “vanity”), or the emptiness of worldly pursuits. For Lévêque, this ring’s skull-like design provides a means of underscoring humans’ vain efforts against death. The ring’s title, Totentanz (German for “dance of the dead”), refers to Franz Liszt’s famous symphonic piece of the same name, written for solo piano and orchestra. It is related to a 2014 installation by Lévêque, Danse macabre, made with wooden beams and wire racks for the exhibition space le 180 in Rouen. A major contemporary artist known for giant installations intended to stimulate the five senses through sound and light, Lévêque primarily develops his works in situ, creating spaces and atmospheres. The initial idea for this ring goes back to 2012 when Lévêque collaborated with the children of the Pierre Budin Primary School in Paris on an in situ display. The exhibition was given the title Seasons in the Abyss and showed school furniture together with “precious” objects gathered by the children from a nearby charity shop. The exhibition also used the spontaneity of children’s writing in the creation of Lévêque’s trademark sculptures made of neon lighting, but with a twist: the children were asked to write the words with their non-dominant hands. The design of this ring follows the outlines of a spontaneous drawing made by the designer’s grandson, Romaric Etienne, at the age of 14. In fact, Lévêque has created many of his artworks with the assistance of friends, family, and children. Nearly all of his wall installations with neon light sentences are initially handwritten by his mother, who has a trembling hand.

Creator:

Claude Lévêque

Ring Size:

8 US, Not Resizable

Metal:

Gold,18k Gold

Weight:

4.8 g

Style:

Contemporary

Place of Origin:

France