设计师简介
Katja Prins出生于1970年，
1982 | 1988 Atheneum Hageveld (A-level), Heemstede, NL
1989 | 1993 M.T.S Vakschool, Schoonhoven, NL (vocational school goldsmithing)
1993 | 1997 Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
2017 | 2019 Master Fine Arts, HKU, Utrecht, NL
共在11个国家举办过23场个展，并在十余个国家和地区拥有20年的教学经验。作品被五十余本著作收录。
EXHIBITIONS (solo)
2020
Brooklyn Metal Works, One & the Other: Two of a Kind, New York, USA
Galerie Rob Koudijs, By Default, Amsterdam, NL
2018
National Museum of Ceramics and Decorative Arts, The self, the other and the world beyond, 4th Melting Point Biennale, Valencia, ES
2017
Amaranto Joies, Uncanny Incarnations, Barcelona, ES
2016
Galerie Rob Koudijs, Shifting Perspectives, Amsterdam, NL
2015
Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, Uncanny Incarnations, Montréal, CA
设计说明
我的作品是关于人体与机械设备、医疗技术和工业之间的关系。探讨技术如何成为我们在这个世界上生存的支撑结构。
在我的作品中，我想讲述关于身体的故事:作为一个操纵的对象，作为一个仪器/机器——仪器/机器是身体的延伸。如今，我们的身体是可以改变的，可以塑造的。我们的身体是我们思想的延伸，总是与周围的环境相联系。毕竟，人，尤其是他的身体，是一切事物的尺度。
“Nexus”系列指的是“合成生物学”，在DNA水平上操纵人体。我们正试图设计和重建细胞结构和DNA分子，以开发新的“合成”生物体。但它也包括我对地面和建筑平面图、解剖图、系统和生长结构的迷恋。
材料是重建的石头(重建的红白珊瑚和缟玛瑙)和银。这些线条刻在银和石的正面和背面。这些作品是平面化的，就像切片，可以放在显微镜下，可以看到细胞结构生长。几乎就像一幅在2D和3D之间的画，在雕刻者的世界里叫做2.5D。
*另一篇介绍作品的文章
NEXUS: In Search of a Connection——Between the Whole and Its Component Parts
寻找联系——在整体和它的组成部分中间
图画似乎就要有生命了。线条是充实的，箭头是亮的，代码是线索。卷相互排斥、合并或漂移。这就好像我们正在观察一个新秩序的出现。抽象的平面部分紧紧抓住现实。
Drawings seem to be on the verge of coming to life. Lines are fleshed out, arrows light up and codes give clues. Volumes drive out, merge with or drift across one another. It is as if we are watching the emergence of a new order. Flat slices of abstraction clutch at reality.
Katja Prins的首饰一直具有清晰的三维结构，其暗示性的空间形式结合在一起组成作品，讲述自己的故事，就像一个自然的整体。多年来，这种拼贴技术不断涌现，越来越坚定地走在前面。由管道和连接处构成的技术设施，往往象征着我们生活的这个世界的复杂性。有时组成部分是明确可识别的形状，有时只是象征性的示意。在这一系列中，勺子的形状是前者的一个明显的例子，而Inventarium中的瓷器元素只是作为参考:它们无法解释的文字和代码象征着实验室的世界。虽然她的风格仍可辨识，但Prins在Nexus系列中采用了一种新的风格。激发这些新作品的主题是如此抽象，以至于它们现在就像图表和草稿。她的作品几乎变成了二维的，带有一种微妙的体积暗示，这种平面结构有一个更有趣的效果。
Prins非常着迷于科学不可阻挡的驱动力来不断推进设计的边界。在她的工作室里，我们看到了有时令人恐惧的资料:医学图表、侵入的技术装置的录音recordings of encroaching technical installations，以及似乎不再与日常生活相连的人们的图像。这种令人不安的全景不仅可以装饰工作室，而且，在我们不知道的情况下，它还构成了我们所有人生活的日常现实。Prins在科学潜力和系统的生物学模式之间的阴暗世界中遇到的每一个趋势都激发了她的想象力。它们提出的问题构成了一个新的珠宝系列的基础。Prins不打算给我们这些问题的答案。更确切地说，每一个客体只是为更大的话语做出贡献。这些问题太复杂，不能简单地解决。这些作品是关于惊叹的，而不是关于批评或寻求认可的。
再次，艺术家试图像一个无辜的旁观者一样评估科学世界。科学家们现在已经在我们的皮肤下爬行The scientists have now crawled under our skin:在他们的实验室里，他们操纵DNA和细胞组织的结构。几乎没有人注意到，人类物种正在被纠正、修改和重建。置换髋关节或心脏瓣膜是一项不可思议的成就，有助于抑制癌细胞扩散的药物也广受赞赏。但当我们的目标不再是治愈而是提高时，我们突然发现自己在走下坡路。生命应该无限延长吗?我们真的应该致力于实现我们力所能及的一切吗?关于控制和虐待的问题被提了出来:到底是谁决定了什么是好，什么是美，什么是幸福?似乎Prins已经对这一系列新珠宝的科学先锋进行了核磁共振扫描。It seems as if Prins has carried out an MRI scan of the scientific vanguard in this new series of jewellery.在薄薄的一层里，她为更仔细的观察准备了科学本身的成就。In thin layers, she prepares the very achievements of science itself for closer inspection.但是，尽管这些结构看起来更加清晰，这个谜团仍然是封闭的，疑团不断增加。像基因治疗和合成生物学这样的成就是一个辉煌的飞跃吗?还是这种精湛的技艺从根本上威胁到了我们的生存?
Prins的创作过程涉及到材料所能唤起的联想之间微妙的相互作用。她总是使用一种与珠宝不同的材料，但这种材料对最终结果的多层次做出了巨大贡献。在这里，艺术家是最强的。因为它的性暗示，她的毕业作品中的橡胶让观众感到不安。在白瓷上，“王子”玩弄“无菌”和“耐用”的概念，而封蜡则涉及涉及隐私、承诺和义务的仪式。在机器的塑料元素是我们的作品，并不是太多的材料激发了想象力，而是精细的表面细节。只有她在几乎每件作品中使用的“银”的含义会随着语境的变化而改变。首先，它作为一种典型的金属，是建造设备和机器所必需的。此外，在不同的系列中，Prins赋予了更多的非传统含义，如纯洁、冷酷和冷漠。Nexus的作品参考了纸张，因此，例如，允许在表面上放置符号。最后，银一直是珠宝本身的公开象征。它作为贵金属的“地位”导致了艺术意图和实践之间令人愉悦的矛盾。
Prins’s creative process involves a refined interplay between the associations that the materials can evoke. She always uses a material which is alien to jewellery but which makes a strong contribution to the multilayered aspect of the end result. Here, the artist is at her strongest. Because of its sexual connotations, the rubber in her graduation work left the viewer feeling uneasy. With white porcelain, Prins played with the concepts of ‘sterile’ and ‘durable’, while sealing wax referred to rituals involving privacy, promises and obligations. In the plastic elements in the Machines Are Us works, it was not so much the material that stirred the imagination but rather the finely detailed surfaces. Only the meaning of silver, which she uses in nearly every piece, changes with the context. Before all else, it functions as an archetypal metal necessary for the construction of installations and machines. In addition, Prins ascribes more unconventional meanings to it in the various series such as purity, hard-heartedness and listlessness. The Nexus works make reference to paper, thus allowing, for instance, the placement of symbols on the surface. Finally, silver is always an overt reference to jewellery itself. Its ‘status’ as a precious metal results in a pleasing ambivalence between artistic intent and practice.
With the abstract subject of the Nexus series, Prins unexpectedly offsets silver through the use of red or white coral and black onyx, but in an artificial form of blocks of reconstructed stone. Mechanized production has rendered the material meaningless. This is a formidable challenge, since the artist is effectively left to her own resources, the proverbial clean slate. Only the antiquated language of colour is allowed to play a role: red represents blood and life, white frigidity or virginity, and black death and infinity.
It seems as if Prins has made a scan of her earlier work with these objects. The Nexus series is a synthesis of all her fascinations. Diverse themes converge, and the intervening hand of man is ubiquitously both a motivating factor and a driving force. Suddenly, it becomes clear that for many aspects it is simply a question of abstraction and scale. Cell structures seem to demonstrate many similarities to high-tech organization charts, and floor plans employ the same language as that of medical abstracts. Compassion for living human beings can also be found in nearly all the works. It confirms why the artist has chosen jewellery as her medium; Prins places her commentary close to the body, which is also her subject. Her work shows that at all levels of society, humans are trying to alter the world: in pursuit of a better life, they go looking and digging everywhere, everywhere sparks are flying, and everywhere boundaries are pushed back. Euphoria alternates with fright.
Prins gives us a magnifying glass, pushing us to investigate. Wear Prins’s jewellery as a symbol of the autonomy of the human body and as a celebration of the infinite achievements of science, but also as a warning against unbridled, reckless ambitions. Choose from the possibilities your own story, your own association, your own piece of jewellery. Wear it as a sign of militancy, an activist’s call to reflection.
Ward Schrijver, art historian and architect, Amsterdam, NL (© Galerie Rob Koudijs)
