Conversation Piece / Post-Colonial Gold
In dialogue with Lorna Simpson
Iconic resonance: Grace Jones
Value: Visibility Without Surrender
This conversation piece stands in dialogue with Lorna Simpson. Not by literally quoting her work, but by translating a central attitude in her practice: the refusal of the Black female image to become fully available, easily consumed or comfortably explained.
The object consists of a rough circular form suspended from a smaller upper element by a dark vertical connector. It carries the scale of an earring, but the presence of a small monument. The surface is uneven, pale and materially insistent. It does not seek polish or decorative smoothness. It appears closer to skin, stone, sediment, scar tissue or archive than to conventional jewellery.
The open circle is essential. It creates visibility, but also withholding. It frames space without filling it. It draws attention to the body, the jawline, the neck and the profile, while refusing to become merely ornamental.
This is where meaning begins.
Lorna Simpson’s work has long examined the conditions under which Black women are seen, read, represented and misread. Through photography, text, collage, film and painting, she questions the supposed neutrality of the image. Her figures are often fragmented, turned away, cropped, repeated or partially withheld. Hair, skin, silhouette and language become charged sites of projection, history and control.
In Simpson’s work, visibility is never simple. To be visible can mean to be recognised, but it can also mean to be fixed, consumed, classified or possessed by the gaze. Her power lies in keeping the image open, complex and resistant. She gives presence without surrendering meaning.
This object translates that value into a wearable sculpture: Visibility Without Surrender. The large circular form is strongly present, yet incomplete at its centre. The rough surface refuses the seduction of finish. The object asks to be seen, but not mastered. It holds the tension between display and protection, exposure and refusal, image and interiority.
Grace Jones becomes a powerful iconic carrier of this value. Her public image is one of the most forceful examples of self-authored visibility in contemporary visual culture. Through body, voice, fashion, pose and performance, Jones transformed herself into an architectural presence: androgynous, sculptural, commanding and impossible to reduce to conventional glamour.
Like Simpson, Jones understands that the Black female image is never neutral territory. But where Simpson often fragments and withholds, Jones amplifies and controls. She turns the body into an icon, a mask, a weapon and a monument. Her visibility is not an invitation to consume her, but a system of power she directs herself.
Simpson and Jones do not meet through style, but through force. One makes the image into a question; the other makes the body into an icon. Both refuse the easy consumption of Black female presence. Both insist on complexity, control and distance. Both show that visibility only becomes valuable when it does not collapse into availability.
Within Post-Colonial Gold, gold is not used as a sign of luxury, but as the marker of a new value system. Value does not arise here from status, possession, fame or smooth beauty, but from the ability to remain present without being possessed. This object carries that value as a sculptural signal on the body.
As a wearable object, it takes art out of the closed space of the museum and places it into movement: on the body, in public, in conversation. It becomes not an accessory, but a portable archive of value. It resists the idea that art should remain locked inside institutions, hidden in storage, absorbed by private collections or immobilised in freeports. Instead, the work enters public life through the body, the street, the fashion image and the everyday encounter.
Through a unique ID and QR code, the piece extends beyond its physical form into a digital layer. The work can also be viewed in an immersive environment, where the wider context remains accessible beyond the limits of place, ownership or opening hours. Dedicated blogs on the website unfold the artist in dialogue, the iconic resonance, the value, the material reference and the thinking behind the work.
The iconic resonance is not used as celebrity endorsement, but as cultural access. It brings the object into a broader visual field and allows a larger audience to approach the work through an image they may already recognise. From there, the piece leads back to the artist, the value and the questions the work activates.
Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold makes value visible by moving art out of the museum, the depot and the closed circuit of ownership. The object is not only worn; it carries access. It becomes a physical and digital entry point to art, thought and self-knowledge: wearable, shareable, digitally available and open beyond the boundaries of the institution.
For our time, this value feels urgent. We live in a culture that demands constant visibility, self-explanation and recognisable identity. Visibility Without Surrender offers another position. It reminds us that being seen does not have to mean being simplified. Presence does not require permission. The image does not owe the viewer full access.
No decoration.
A visible form that refuses to be consumed.
Each piece is handmade and unique. Through its unique ID and QR code, the object connects to a digital layer: the immersive presentation, the artist in dialogue, the iconic resonance, the value, the material reference and the context behind the work.
Specifications
Type: wearable sculpture / statement earring
Material: rough pale sculptural forms, dark connector element
Finish: handmade; each piece is unique
Collection: Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold
Artist in dialogue: Lorna Simpson
Iconic resonance: Grace Jones
Value: Visibility Without Surrender
Digital layer: unique ID + QR code
Use: sculptural wearable object, handle with care
Price: €550
Shipping Info
Ships from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Each piece is carefully packed and shipped with tracking.
As every object is handmade and unique, small variations in finish, form and material are part of the work.
Meta Description
Handmade wearable sculpture earring by Annelies Nuy, part of Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold, in dialogue with Lorna Simpson. With Grace Jones as iconic resonance, the object translates the value Visibility Without Surrender into a powerful wearable sculptural form, connected through a unique ID and QR code to an immersive digital layer and dedicated website context.
HS code: 711790
EU commodity / CN code: 71179000
Product description: Handmade imitation jewellery / wearable sculpture earring made with rough pale sculptural forms and dark connector element.
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