Jardiniére 1902 - 1903

This is Hugo Leven’s jardinière, made in Germany from pewter. It's an exercise in process. The silversmith starts with a material, like a painter with a blank canvas, and then coaxes it into a form through labor, and skill. Look at how the light catches the surface. It’s all curves. The metal is thick, molded and stretched into these organic shapes. The handles especially feel like they're still in the process of becoming, like the plant-life it is made to contain, they are forever in motion. The shiny surface doesn’t hide the tool marks, the marks of its making, but celebrates them. I’m reminded of the biomorphic forms of Arp and Hepworth, the ways their sculptures seem to be perpetually transforming before our eyes. Art is a conversation across time, an exchange of ideas, where ambiguity and multiple interpretations are embraced over any fixed meaning.