“King’s Folly” an object by Ivan Venkov
Ivan Venkov created his elegant jeweled bijou, in homage to Joris-Karl Huysman’s novel, À rebours (aka ‘Against Nature’), in which Des Esseintes, who was a gentleman of refined sensibility, an exquisite arbiter of taste, came into possession of a tortoise whose shell he had embedded with jewels to create an ornamental pet.
The detail of Venkov’s art object elaborates on the style of Fabergé eggs which exult in opulent intricacy. The truncated rear of the deer is fitted with a jeweled mechanism and a system of crystal cabinetry with an ambiguous orifice, which presumably acts as the insertion point for a key or a coin. The integration of the machine into the organic flesh of the animal alludes to a parasitic invasion – but one that completes the motion of the running deer as a mechanical windup with a symbiotic consumption of energy.
“King’s Folly” an object by Ivan Venkov
“King’s Folly” an object by Ivan Venkov
