Reinhold Ziegler: Transgression

- Blurb -

His encounter with an Inuit talisman prompted Reinhold Ziegler to question everything he had ever learned about jewellery. It sent him on a quest for a deeper meaning that brought him to Carl Gustav Jung' s understanding of archetypes and continued through Georges Bataille' s theories on transgression before finally leading to a zen-Buddhist approach to consciousness. This book is a report from that journey through words, and through images of jewellery objects that no longer tend to be a marker of identity, but rather seek to express a unity with everything that is. The objects in Transgression are made from meteorites, fossils or stone age tools, among other things. Reinhold Ziegler' s jewellery objects are rungs on a ladder that leads from the boundaries of rationality and individuality to a more immediate awareness of ourselves and the world around us. The intention of Reinhold Ziegler' s jewellery objects is to move the attention of the wearer or onlooker from themselves onto something greater-a radical strategy within a field that is strongly occupied with emphasising the individuality of the wearer. Ziegler' s art is influenced by the French philosopher Georges Bataille, who in his work Eroticism identifies a strong dilemma in humanity in which, on one hand, we want to fight for our individuality yet, at the same time, have a strong desire to be united with what he calls "everything that is. " In this book, Ziegler deals with this topic from many angles-gravitation, vibration, meteorites, fossils, and general aspects of humanity such as tools (from the Stone Age), talismans, spirituality, and consciousness.