Conversation Piece / Post-Colonial Gold
In dialogue with Meret Oppenheim
Iconic resonance: Kate Moss
Value: Uncanny Freedom
This conversation piece stands in dialogue with Meret Oppenheim. Not by literally quoting her fur-covered objects, but by translating a central force in her work: the liberation of the object from its expected function, gender, surface and meaning.
The ring is compact, circular and materially direct. Its pale surface carries dark traces, irregular marks and a rough, almost skin-like texture. At first, the form appears closed and sculptural, but the opening reveals another register. A vivid pink fibre emerges from within the ring, soft, exposed and unexpected. It interrupts the object. It turns the ring from a wearable form into a charged interior.
The tension lies in that displacement. The ring is hard, but contains softness. It is circular, but not complete. It appears protective, but reveals something intimate. The pink element is not decoration. It functions as a disturbance: a visible interior, a trace of the body, a flash of vulnerability, desire, humour or memory.
This is where meaning begins.
Meret Oppenheim understood how an ordinary object could become unstable through material transformation. Her famous Object, also known as Breakfast in Fur, did not simply cover a cup, saucer and spoon with fur as a visual joke. It changed the object’s entire condition. A refined domestic object, associated with use, taste and social ritual, became suddenly tactile, erotic, absurd and almost impossible to use. The object was liberated from function and turned into a site of projection, discomfort and desire.
This ring works from that same field of tension. It does not behave like a conventional ring. It can be worn, but it resists being reduced to adornment. It has the scale of an object for the hand, yet the presence of something more psychological. It brings together surface and interior, hardness and softness, control and exposure. The object becomes strange not because it is theatrical, but because it makes the boundary between body and object uncertain.
Oppenheim’s importance also lies in her refusal to be fixed. She moved through surrealism, object-making, painting, poetry, design and conceptual thinking without accepting one stable category. She resisted the idea of “feminine art” and was interested in a more fluid, androgynous creativity in which masculine and feminine forces could work at the same time. That refusal matters here. The ring is not soft or hard, beautiful or damaged, intimate or defensive, masculine or feminine. It holds these tensions at once.
The value of this piece is Uncanny Freedom: the freedom of an object to escape its assigned function, and the freedom of the body to carry something unresolved.
Kate Moss becomes the iconic resonance for this value. Not as celebrity endorsement, and not as a simple fashion reference, but as a figure who carries a particular kind of glamour: fragile, resistant, unfinished, cool and never fully available. Her image has never depended on polished perfection. It carries tension: beauty and damage, distance and exposure, control and vulnerability.
Through Kate Moss, the ring enters a different register. It is not a surrealist object locked inside art history, and it is not a decorative ring made for conventional elegance. It becomes an object of worn tension. On the body, it suggests a kind of glamour that has lost its clean surface. Something inside has become visible, but not explained.
Oppenheim and Moss do not meet through style, but through the disturbance of beauty. Oppenheim made objects strange by giving them skin, softness, bodily charge and psychological ambiguity. Moss made fashion images powerful by refusing healthy, polished, obedient beauty. Both open a space where attraction and discomfort can exist at the same time. Both show that beauty becomes stronger when it is not fully resolved.
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 polish, status or possession, but from the ability of an object to carry tension, memory and meaning. This ring does not present beauty as something smooth, complete or obedient. It makes beauty unstable, tactile and slightly dangerous.
As a wearable object, the ring takes surrealist displacement out of the museum and places it on the hand. The hand becomes the site where object, skin, gesture and meaning meet. The ring can be worn, but it is not passive. It interrupts the surface of the body and introduces a small interior world.
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. Kate Moss brings the object into a broader visual field and allows a wider audience to approach the work through an image they may already recognise. From there, the piece leads back to Meret Oppenheim, to surrealism, to the charged object, and to the deeper question activated by the work: when does beauty stop being decoration and become a form of disturbance.
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 constantly smooths the body into image and turns intimacy into performance. Uncanny Freedom offers another position. It reminds us that the body is not a clean surface, that glamour does not need to be obedient, and that an object can become powerful precisely when it refuses to stay in its assigned place.
This is not an ornament, but a wearable object in which glamour loses its clean skin and becomes free to disturb.
Each piece is handmade and unique. Through its unique ID and QR code, the object is connected 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 / sculptural ring
Material: ceramic-concrete composite, pale surface, dark graphic traces, vivid pink fibre element
Finish: handmade; each piece is unique
Collection: Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold
Artist in dialogue: Meret Oppenheim
Iconic resonance: Kate Moss
Value: Uncanny Freedom
Digital layer: unique ID + QR code
Use: sculptural wearable object, handle with care
Price: €225
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 sculptural ring by Annelies Nuy, part of Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold, in dialogue with Meret Oppenheim. With Kate Moss as iconic resonance, the object translates the value Uncanny Freedom into a wearable form that moves between object, body, glamour and disturbance, 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 ring made with ceramic-concrete composite, pale surface, dark graphic traces and vivid pink fibre element.
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