Karl Fritsch: ‘Lucy’ or scientifically: AL288-1
Karl Fritsch, the prolific, original jeweler is having a show at Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger in Hochheim, a little town outside of Frankfurt, Germany. It is a beautiful space as you will see in the installation shots and contrasts beautifully with Karl’s ‘misshapen’ jewelry.
Susan Cummins: Gerd Rothmann wrote about the bowl you created for this show by saying: ‘Out of this bar of gold Karl Fritsch has wrought, using a heavy hammer in a somewhat disrespectful (if not brutal, or in any case quite unsubtle) way, a somewhat misshapen looking bowl. It would seem that he went about doing this with the express desire to shatter any professional notion of aesthetics: the manner in which he mistreated the precious and venerated material was admirably cheeky.’ Your approach is disquieting. Why do you work this way?
Karl Fritsch: If I answer that question I can tell you the story of my life, or I can say I don’t know. I think the text from Gerd gives a answer and it is my ultimate pleasure and reason to make work like that, if somebody can engage with it in the way Gerd does. No bullshit! The bit of text you quote is taken from a longer text. It might help to read the whole text as it gives some ideas about answers.
‘(First you have to imagine one kilogram of pure 24 carat gold: its weight; its golden yellow lustre; its softness. Merchants used to bite on gold coins, testing if the gold was genuine on the basis of the indentation made by their teeth.
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