A thousand facets sits with contemporary artist Karl Fritsch.

Karl, creates playful and unconventional contemporary jewelry. He crosses the line with his mix materials to make us ask, what is truly precious.  On the premiere of season 4, I sit with Karl and we talk about his beginnings, how he came into the world of jewelry and how even a comment from his kids will inspire his work. 

About:

Karl Fritsch has gained international recognition for his ever developing body of work, which has focussed almost solely on rings. Fritsch’s jewellery is unmistakable. His works vary from hand-moulded one-off castings, to re-cast, contrastingly daintier jewel-embedded rings, to towering stacks of cut and colourful glass. His ability to continually create new rings is vast and varied. Combining traditional techniques, playing on jewellery history, he has developed has own personal language. He is capable of applying both careful and quick consideration to the materials and objects he works with, and employs precious and base metals, facetted and found stones in his work with egalitarian abandon, turning the most ordinary into the extraordinary.

“Of course the ring wants to be beautiful. The technique also wants to be beautiful, and most often it’s the idea that wants to be the most beautiful. But sometimes a ring likes nothing better than to sit in the mud and not give a damn about how it looks. If it’s exactly what it wants to be in a given moment, it is precise, perfect and the most beautiful”. Karl Fritsch

Born in Germany in 1962, Karl Fritsch was classically trained at the Goldsmith’s College in Pforzheim, and then attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He has exhibited extensively, presented guest lectures around the world and his work is held in private and public collections internationally, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Pinakothek of Modern Art in Munich, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

He has been the recipient of a number of awards including the Herbert Hoffman Prize from the International Craftsmen Trade Fair in Munich and the prestigious jury-selected Francoise van den Bosch Award (2006), given every 2 years to an international jewellery and object maker who is recognised for his/ her oeuvre, influence and contribution to the field.

You can follow Karl on Instagram @karlfritschrings or his website

https://www.karl-fritsch.com/

Please visit @athousandfacets on Instagram to see some of the work discussed in this episode.

Music by @chris_keys__

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