- Bracelet
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Peter Chang’s enigmatic jewelry both attracts and repels with its vibrant, clashing colors, psychedelic patterns, and largeness of scale. Chang achieves unbelievable gradations of color in his works, as seen in this fiery orange and red bracelet that also demonstrates his use of found objects. Their oddball shapes and colors add to the humor and wit that he imbues in all of his jewelry.
Chang, who trained as a graphic designer and a sculptor, also worked in furniture before turning to jewelry. His preferred medium is plastic. Although society may consider plastic disposable, it is quintessentially a material of today, closely linked with progressive culture and recent social history. “It is the magical potential of materials that I find most fascinating," Chang says. "Plastics in their own right have little intrinsic value. It is the joy of exploring their qualities of malleability, creating colour and sensuality, teasing the materials to obey, exploiting all to the maximum, which gives it value to me.”
ProvenanceThe artist; acquired by Helen Williams Drutt English; purchased by MFAH, 2002.
Exhibition History"Gold," Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, December 7, 1991–January 25, 1992.
"Peter Chang: A Visionary, Museum of Art and Design," Helsinki, Finland, 2000; American Craft Museum, New York, 2000.
"Peter Chang – It's Only Plastics," Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Germany, June 15–September 8, 2002; Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, October 11, 2002–January 6, 2003; Bayerischer Kunstgewerbeverein Munich, January 16–March 1, 2003; Goldschmiedhaus Hanau, Germany, April–June, 2003.
"Beyond Ornament: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 6–June 27, 2004.
"Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 30, 2007–January 27, 2008; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, March 14–July 6, 2008; Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, August 16, 2008–January 4, 2009; Tacoma Art Museum, Washington, June 27–September 13, 2009.
"The Marzio Years: Transforming the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1982–2010," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 25, 2020–January 10, 2021.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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