Made for Ornamentum's Up In Smoke exhibition, Swedish silversmith Anders Ljungberg has created two functional artworks including Portal, an exquisitely hand-crafted sculpture that brings to mind Brutalist architecture with a small dose of Surrealism. The central element detaches to be used for storage, while a small pipe of silver appears as bubbles leaking from a fissure in the structure.
"Humankind has always searched for the magic in life. In times marked by rationalism, spiritualism and magic have become even more desired. Those concepts have , as so many other concepts and ideas in the contemporary, been kidnapped by a consumerist culture, in which drugs can sometimes offer a way to the magic and the spiritual but also to the highly desired moment of rest. Those mental states can easily be reached and consumed as anything else in the contemporary consumerist culture.In my own youth, the use of marijuana was often associated with rituals of masculinity which made me feel both uncomfortable and excluded since I didn't find any interest of being a part of it and honestly didn't know how to do it.
In the work Portal, we see signs of this masculinity ritual - as a monument over something both desirable and limiting "
Anders Ljungberg
Portal, 2020
vessel for marijuana + silver smoking pipe, silver, tin-plated copper
2.95 x 10.25 x 6.9 "
7.5 x 26 x 17.5 cm
7.5 x 26 x 17.5 cm
6523
Exhibitions
Up In SmokeContemporary Jewelers, Silversmiths and Designers Take On Marijuana
2020
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