VOA标准英语2011--Picasso, Other Greats Created 'Wearable

Picasso, Other Greats Created 'Wearable Art'

Artists such as Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder and Robert Rauschenberg left behind works of art which are instantly recognizable: Picasso, whose portraits of his lovers merge¹ profile and full face in a disjointed style; Calder with his giant mobiles; and Rauschenberg, famous in the West, with his huge combines made of every day materials and trash.
But few people know these artists also made jewelry². A New York museum has gathered rarely-seen jewels created by Picasso, Calder and many other famous artists.
Of the 200 pendants, brooches and rings at the Museum of Arts and Design, 130 were collected by Diane Venet, a French woman and former journalist.
She didn’t start out thinking she’d collect jewelry by famous artists. But early in life, she fell in love with Bernar Venet, a French sculptor³.
“I met my husband 26 years ago,” she says, “and not very long after, he twisted a piece of silver around my finger as a kind of engagement ring. This is the first piece of artist jewelry I had actually.”
Most of Bernar Venet’s friends were artists who exchanged pieces with him. Soon, his wife had jewelry made by artists better known for their larger works, such as the French sculptor Cesar. His trademark⁴ was creating huge metal sculptures of crushed cars.
“The germ was within me and I couldn’t help it,” she says. “I went on and on.”
Venet curated the show, “Picasso to Koons: Artist as Jeweler,” which focuses on artists not primarily known for making jewelry.
“The Museum of Arts and Design considers that jewelry is one of the most important art forms in contemporary life. And it cuts across many cultures and gender⁵ and race and creed,” says Holly⁶ Hotchner, director of the museum. “The idea is not to take a sculpture and then miniaturize it. The idea is to come up with a concept that really relates to the body.”
Picasso, with his Grand Faune pendant, did just that, says Venet about the piece she owns. A faun, in Roman mythology⁷, is half man, half animal, a forest god. Picasso used this fantasized animal in many drawings. His Grand Faune pendant is one of eight Picasso jewels in this exhibit.
Venet believes Picasso’s jewelry shows the artist’s softer side. “I think it’s very special because it’s very personal. Picasso did it because he was in love with Marie Therese Walter, and he gave her a piece. And he was in love with Dora Maar and he did a piece for her. It was a love story, most of the time.”
Calder, the American artist known for his mobiles and wire sculptures, also dabbled⁸ in jewelry. A Calder necklace, with his trademark circles, is in the show.
“You would invite Calder for dinner,” says Venet, “and he would come with a piece for a present because he was making them in his studio.”
Sculptor Alberto Giacometti, famous for his ghostly human statues, is represented in the show by two pieces.
As the story goes, he agreed to make buttons for the early 20th century fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
“They were large, three inches ((8 centimeters)) wide, and in bronze," says Venet. "They were much too heavy. So she sent them back to him. He mounted them into brooches and gave them to friends.”
Although Venet never met Giacometti, Picasso or Calder, she did know a number of famous artists including Frank Stella, who she calls a friend. He gave her a necklace of painted gold on titanium.
The exhibit takes visitors through the contemporary period with a tiny platinum⁹ bunny on a chain by Jeff Koons, the American artist known for gargantuan¹⁰ sculptures, like the 13-meter high flower-covered puppy that dominated New York’s Rockefeller Center 10 years ago. His style is sometimes called post-pop.
A human-size inflated¹¹ bunny made of steel was the model for his pendant. Museum director Hotchner says Koons is comfortable working in small scale.
“He certainly has made, and it’s sort of part of his ethic¹² and part of the way he approaches making, that he has made work that is small in scale, enormous in scale,” she says. “So it’s something he would be very comfortable with.”
She points out that not all artists are comfortable making art for the body. Some refused to create jewelry for Venet. Nevertheless, as the exhibit demonstrates, even a tiny piece can be a great work of art.

1 merge   

v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体

参考例句：

• I can merge my two small businesses into a large one.我可以将我的两家小商店合并为一家大商行。
• The directors have decided to merge the two small firms together.董事们已决定把这两家小商号归并起来。

2 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

3 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

4 trademark   

n.商标；特征；vt.注册的…商标

参考例句：

• The trademark is registered on the book of the Patent Office.该商标已在专利局登记注册。
• The trademark of the pen was changed.这钢笔的商标改了。

5 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

6 holly   

n.[植]冬青属灌木

参考例句：

• I recently acquired some wood from a holly tree.最近我从一棵冬青树上弄了些木料。
• People often decorate their houses with holly at Christmas.人们总是在圣诞节时用冬青来装饰房屋。

7 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

8 dabbled   

v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资

参考例句：

• He dabbled in business. 他搞过一点生意。 来自辞典例句
• His vesture was dabbled in blood. 他穿的衣服上溅满了鲜血。 来自辞典例句

9 platinum   

n.白金

参考例句：

• I'll give her a platinum ring.我打算送给她一枚白金戒指。
• Platinum exceeds gold in value.白金的价值高于黄金。

10 gargantuan   

adj.巨大的，庞大的

参考例句：

• My gargantuan,pristine machine was good for writing papers and playing solitaire,and that was all.我那庞大的、早期的计算机只适合写文章和玩纸牌游戏，就这些。
• Right away,I realized this was a mistake of gargantuan proportions.我立刻意识到这是一个巨大的错误。

11 inflated   

adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨

参考例句：

• He has an inflated sense of his own importance. 他自视过高。
• They all seem to take an inflated view of their collective identity. 他们对自己的集体身份似乎都持有一种夸大的看法。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 ethic   

n.道德标准，行为准则

参考例句：

• They instilled the work ethic into their children.他们在孩子们的心中注入了职业道德的理念。
• The connotation of education ethic is rooted in human nature's mobility.教育伦理的内涵根源于人本性的变动性。