2018 Catalogue Archive

Danish artist Kim Buck is having fun with his Puffed Up Pendant. It is a visual trick: what looks like an inflatable ‘o’ made of a shiny synthetic fabric is in fact carefully crafted from silver. And it might also be a self-deprecating joke, poking fun at both the serious world of the silversmith, and his own status as a maker of wearable art. This series emerged from Buck’s ongoing search for new ways to make hollow forms without using traditional metalsmithing techniques such as hammering. Inflating the form was an exciting answer, but it is also a potential comment on a person or a situation. This big ‘o’, also the first letter of the Danish word ‘opblæst’, which is equivalent to the phrase ‘puffed up’, might just prove to be a lot of hot air, even if it is beautifully realized in silver. Kim Buck worked as a goldsmith in Munich and then studied jewelry at the Danish College of Jewellery and Silversmithing (now Institute of Precious Metals), graduating in 1985. His work is featured in museums in Europe and the United States, including the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Oslo, Norway, the Danish Museum of Art and Design in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Leipzig, Germany, the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum in Aberdeen, Scotland, the V&A Museum in London, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.