Robert Baines Plenitude

ROBERT BAINES

A VISIBLE LIKENESS

BROOCHES, 1981

Gold,silver,copperandstainlesssteel

Smallest22 × 11 × 5 mm

Largest46 × 16 × 6 mm

INTERVENTION OF RED BRACELET, 2003

Silver-gilt,powdercoat

205 × 32 × 32 mm

Collection:Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim,Germany

INTERVENTION OF RED BROOCH, 1997

Silver-gilt,collectedobjects, powdercoat

30 × 50 × 19 mm

Collection:MuseumofArtsandDesign, NewYorkCity,UnitedStates

INTERVENTION OF RED

The Intervention of Red is a jewellery account. Jewellery, the document in question, offers a view into cultural descriptions of history. These descriptions are the stylistic configuration of iconography. Each jewellery piece has its own historical/cultural location. They have a visual genre with a chemical and methodological correctness. The stylistic and material data of each jewellery work identified becomes the basis for authentication by curators/conservators/jewellery historians. In the diagnostic purpose there is the expectation of an archaeological correctness within the fabric and manufacture.

This paradigm is upset in The Intervention of Red by the intrusion-inclusion-interruption of the colour red, and furthermore by the possibility of its substance. The inclusion becomes an impediment and an upheaval within the orthodoxy of the classifier. A perceived genre or style is challenged. The substance of the red has no specificity to the time location. The material condition of red is not located within any historical period. Substances of glass, plastic, foil, paint and found objects become a confrontation and a vehicle for colour, offering new vantages for signage for what preexists.

Not drawn to the preciousness of some gemset jewel but to the intrusion into something that was previously correct the observer is called to a new preciousness–the richness of plastic, glass–Coca-Cola. Rather than questions of clarity, faceting and cut, one asks ‘Is that Coca-Cola?’