PARIS.- Around this theme of Gold, the MiniMasterpiece Gallery has invited two prominent figures of contemporary art and design to bring their monumental work down to the scale of jewellery.

Claude Lévêque, French visual artist of international fame (and who represented France at the Venice Biennale in 2009), has drawn inspiration from his work on writing for the creation of his first art jewellery, the necklace entitled Venin (Venom). Neon, one of his favourite materials, is thus transformed into yellow gold thread. Close to alternative cultures, including the punk movement, his work challenges the blind acceptance of the established order – a poetic irreverence to be found already in the very title of the necklace.

Pablo Reinoso, Franco-Argentinian artist and designer, is the author of the famous “spaghetti bench”, whose creation started in 2006. Exhibited both by major design houses (such as Carpenters workshop) and numerous galleries around the world, Reinoso questions with pertinence the boundaries of art and design. For his first collaboration with MiniMasterpiece Gallery, Reinoso has developed a set of 8 sculptures to wear in yellow gold, each taking on the challenge of revisiting on a smaller scale the meandering of his monumental reflections.

The MiniMasterpiece Gallery – created in the Spring of 2012 by Esther de Beaucé – is the first Parisian gallery exclusively dedicated to the edition and sale of jewellery by contemporary visual artists and designers.

Art jewellery, in the same way as a painting or sculpture, is a work of art.

Born of the same creative process, it possesses the same force, poetry, provocation and sometimes humour. They differ only in their destination.

The aim of the gallery is to invite renowned contemporary artists and designers to come up with new and exclusive jewellery projects. Those who have so far worked directly with the gallery include the artists François Morellet, Lee Ufan, Bernar Venet, Barthélémy Toguo, Claude Lévêque, Vera Molnar, Françoise Pétrovitch, Pablo Reinoso, Sophia Vari, and Miguel Chevalier, and the designers Constance Guisset, François Azambourg, and Cédric Ragot.