Sunday, July 29, 1923

2017

Expanded jewelry project in collaboration with goldsmith Michaela González

A case is a small box or wrap that is used to store things. It is generally used for small objects of a certain value.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This piece known as The Cosmic Star is a silver case with a crystal lid for a 5-pointed star-shaped cookie, specially made by Raymond Roussel. It is closed with a small padlock, also of silver, and joined with a ribbon to a parchment on which the date and the memory of a breakfast between Raymond Roussel and Camille Flammarion, in Flammarion´s observatory house . This case, this image and its appointment, is the starting point and origin of the project Sunday, July 29, 1923, a collaborative piece between Michaela González (goldsmith) and Antonio Arango (visual artist).

 

The case

The case
Black case with silkscreen printing. Measures of 25.5 x 31 cm and 7.5 cm high.

 

The piece

Metal case in 2 versions: silver .925 and bronze with stars and Sterling silver padlock. The piece is locked with a padlock and each one has a unique design with a constellation selected by Michaela González. Inside there is a silver object designed for the case and with symbolic meaning by the authors. The work is elliptical; 4 cm in its widest part and 1.5 cm height.

Graphic material

The case also contains a printed poster in 1 ink silk screen. At the back, in digital printing, there are images and complementary text; brief portrayals of Raymond Roussel and Camille Flammarion, iconic images of their historical influences or transcendences and a text written especially for the piece. The poster measures 45 x65 cm. Text and Design A. Arango

Photographs

Also included are 3 photographic images with digital treatment made by A. Arango. The photographs are free interpretations of Roussell’s literature, specifically of his novel Locus Solus (1914), and an allusion to astronomy and Flammarion’s thought. Each image is printed by injection with pigmented ink on Hahnemühle cotton paper of 305 g. The series is titled Resurrectine, «… fluid that if injected into a recent corpse, manages to represent the most important incident of his life.

«Raymond Roussel in his posthumous book How I wrote some of my books (1935) reveals a secret which consists of the formulas for writing his literature. The secret consisted of an artificial mechanism of word games and phonetic combinations based on puns, homonyms and polysemies. The «unveiling of the secret» meant declaring something that nobody knew was kept, until it is discovered. So revealing was the confession that Foucault published the essay Raymond Roussel (1963) in which secrecy and hidden truth are part of the identity and sense of personal value that everybody must keep and maintain.

Sunday, July 29, 1923 talks about the use of the Case and its emblem as a final piece or work. The Case and the importance it has for the value it holds. Fetishism to protect, to possess a secret, a secret in its revelation even for ourselves, but that its existence or latent presence enhances the particular idolatry or respect we give to an object. Devotion to the material object, belief and worship for what it is and represents for each of us is a secret, a secret that only we know and often can not be revealed. What is certain is that the fetishism and the value for the secret that we all keep builds over the years the walls of a house in which we live and grow; a house where we do not live but we are, a house that keeps imaginary records of the value of our happiness.

  • Presented for the first time, with a print run of 5 units, at the PaperWorks Art Book Fair in September 2017 at the Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), as part of the Gallery Weekend. It was exhibited within an editorial framework in which the piece was made.

 

 

 

Expanded Jewelry, Photograph, Design, Essay