Meret Oppenheim
Sugar ring, designed in 1936, executed in 2014
silver gold plated ring with sugar and white marble
3.4 x 2.5 x 2 cm
Gems and Ladders edition
‘I love natural materials. But everything man makes is nature, even plastic, even the atomic bomb,’ Meret Oppenheim observed in an interview with Valie Export in 1975. The sugar ring, which Meret Oppenheim designed in the mid-1930s, is an absurd and delightful combination of artifice and so-called nature, of opulent and cheap materials. The throwaway and frangile sugar cube is elevated to the status of a lasting, precious stone; an edible material is made wearable. At any time the wearer can exchange the cube for a fresh ‘jewel’ or even for a real gemstone.
