Van Cleef & Arpels has its very own Noah's Ark
The animal theme has been at the heart of the Van Cleef & Arpels’s creations since its earliest years. This time, from the earth to the sky, a profusion of animals such as rabbits, elephants, koalas, owls and toucans are shepherded towards the collection – l’Arche de Noé racontée par Van Cleef & Arpels.
Noah’s Ark, as the Maison interprets it, welcomes on board over sixty couples guided by three imaginary creatures of mysterious beauty.
Whether alone or in pairs, the fauna are transformed into clips inspired by the aesthetic qualities of the living world. The joyful collection features a multiplicity of precious materials carefully selected, engraved and polished so to give life to every single piece. Together with varied postures, vivid shades and refined details, the high jewellery savoir-faire is magnified.
And Van Cleef & Arpels wanted to present the new jewellery collection in the form of a scenography.
Playing with light and shadow, Van Cleef & Arpels created a public exhibition that invited the audience to embark on a dream-filled journey – inside the ark, that is.
A large black box was made to depict the hull of a ship in which a video projection screened movements reminiscent of the sea while the calm and rhythmic strains of Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt evoked a sense of mystery to complete the experience.
There, the symbolic, oneiric and figurative vista of Van Cleef & Arpels’s precious world and Robert Wilson’s spellbinding mise-en-scène in a blend of lyricism and fun, dream and reality, artful contrasts and subtle contradictions was on full display.
