NEW YORK — Ten projectors spread out across the Guggenheim Museum last night gave about 250 guests the feeling of being encased in a precious gemstone at Tiffany & Co.’s launch of its 2014 Blue Book collection.
Artists from Glowing Bulbs and John Ensor Parker, in collaboration with multimedia curator Leo Kuelbs, staged a mapping projection installation called “The Diamond Sky,” using light reflections and refractions to create colorful, geometric patterns, approximating jewelry and building facades at different times, that spun across Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature spiraling parapets up toward the night sky visible through the oculus.
Speaking to BLOUIN Artinfo at the event, Kuelbs said: “The idea was to make it appear as if you’re inside a gem. Playing with both light and depth, people should be able to take away a sense of having received a virtual heirloom.”
The starting point of inspiration was of course the collection of sparkling gemstones, said Kuelbs, which includes diamonds and colored gemstones in the most elegantly crafted designs, with key pieces inspired from the Fifth Aveue jeweler’s archives. But then, there was the challenge of the lack of continuous wall space, or projection surface, to consider.
“Once we knew the site was the Guggenheim, we started thinking about where the people were going to be watching the installation from. The challenges were also where the nice surprises arose. We only have these parapet areas so there’s all this negative space in between, but the artists, Glowing Bulbs and John Ensor Parker, are great, they really know what they’re doing.”
Kuelbs has curated a myriad of artistic events involving public art, luxury marketing, video art and multi-city programs in cities such as New York and Berlin, focusing on collaborative projects with an emphasis on conceptual infrastructure. Recent projection mapping shows include two for Dom Perignon, “The Expanding Universe” and “Divine Coalescence”, and “Codex Dynamic,” which was presented across roughly 34,000 sq ft of the Manhattan Bridge in 2012. Last October, the trio staged “Blueprints and Perspectives,” an outdoor exhibition of light, video, sound and performance that was played out on The Wyly Building as part of Aurora the contemporary art exhibition in Dallas, Texas.
“When you do something so large-scale and enveloping, when there’s more going on than you can see, it creates a vulnerability in people that are gathered together in one vulnerable spot looking at something really beautiful. That can be a really powerful feeling for people,” said Kuelbs, who added that the installation for Tiffany’s — comprising a 6-minute main piece and a 20-minute teaser — was so exclusive that it would “only ever be be shown twice, tonight only, and to the 250 people here only.”
The event at the Guggenheim drew such celebrities and supermodels as Katie Holmes, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth (pictured below), Hilary Rhoda and Fei Fei Sun.
To see the stunning jewels from the Blue Book on display, click on the slideshow.
