← If Jewels Could Talk with Carol Woolton
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- [00:06]
A
I think people like gold because it's stable. It's not going to go away, as we talked about earlier. It's not corrosive. You always have gold once you've bought it. We want to represent figures of our world in gold. We want to immortalize them in gold.
- [00:26]
B
CAROL I'm Carol Houlton, the voice of jewellery. Welcome to if Jewels Could Talk. I'm an author and broadcaster and the woman who initiated the role of jewellery editor at magazines like Tatler and Vogue. This is a podcast for everyone, for people who do like jewellery, for people who don't realise they like jewellery, and anyone intrigued by fascinating facts, new ideas and forgotten histories. So join me as I tell sparkly tales and meet all sorts of people delving into four centuries of jewellery culture and investigate what's happening now. Today, as gold prices hit an all time high, they are over $3200 per ounce. It's obvious that investors are running to a safe haven amidst global uncertainty and market turmoil. And this is something that humankind has always done. But gold is much more than a haven for wealth. It's the history of an obsession which has played a role at every stage of human history. Its motivated societies determine the fates of kings, inspired works of art adorned rulers for centuries with gold crowns, who've also stamped their likenesses on golden coins. So I thought it was a good moment to explore the power and the splendor of gold through a new exhibition. So I'm delighted to have today Matthew Jakubowski, the senior curator of fashion and material culture at New York's Brooklyn Museum, with us today. Thank you for joining us, Matthew.
- [02:11]
A
Oh, thank you so much, Carol.
- [02:13]
B
And Matthew is the lead curator of the new exhibition exhibition called Solid Gold. Matthew, the images of it are quite overwhelming in their yellow shine. It's quite extraordinary spectacle. And I wondered, as you've been curating it, what do you feel gold has symbolized to people?
- [02:34]
A
Gold has taken on many different forms over its 6,000 plus history that we've engaged with gold. But one of the stories that struck me early on in my research was that there are many stories handed down where they describe how in times before science, when our world was a little bit more mystical and alchemical, people believed that gold was the product of golden sunlight and water, because they found nuggets of gold in riverbeds and streams. And once that idea took root, it continued even though we were mining gold in many other different ways. So our human attachment and relationship between gold and the sun continued. So when we have crowns or we have paintings with halos, or we have necklaces. They're in essence representations of the sun.
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B
I mean, when you think of it, the rainbow, there's always a pot of gold at the rainbow. And I suppose some people interpret that as wealth, but also it's happiness, isn't it?
- [03:52]
A
Well, people, I think, apply their own personal meanings to gold. Sometimes. We do feel that gold is about happiness. And I think certainly in this market, if you have invested in gold, it's making you happy. But also gold, it's very symbolic for people in terms of relationships. We often have gold rings. We often make statues that we feel bring us some degree of spirituality. We depict them in gold. And many times those statues represent even more ideas. For example, in the exhibition I have a statue by Mark Quinn of the model Kate Moss. And the sculpture is titled Siren, referencing back to the ancient sirens who were half bird, half woman. And they were said to have mystical songs that they would sing that would lure sailors to their wreck. While in a modern interpretation one could say beautiful, Kate Moss is perhaps her allure is drawing people to wreck ships, you know, symbolically. So the stories and attachments that we have to gold, I think go beyond just words. And so different emotions are evoked by seeing gold.
- [05:30]
B
I mean, there's a quote, isn't there, when Columbus on his first voyage to America said, oh, most excellent gold. You know, it's a treasure that helps souls to paradise. I guess if you hadn't seen it before, it must be extraordinary because I guess that's one of the important elements of gold, is that it does not tarnish. It stays as fresh and as yellow and as shiny as the day it was on earth.
- [05:59]
A
Yes. You know, one of the things I like to point out to people is that their phones contain gold. And, you know, in the discussion that we often have about how is gold only for those privileged people, well, our telephones today wouldn't operate the way they do if they didn't have non corrosive gold in them. Because gold is what makes the USB C connector work, it's what makes the camera work, and it's what makes it possible for you to have an iPhone or smartphone for many, many years, because the metals inside it do not corrode. And so technology is democratizing gold for us. You know, if we think back to, for example, radios or other early electronics that had metal elements to them, maybe you've seen one at a flea market, for example, when you open it up, oftentimes those tubes or metal components all have like white Corrosion or something on them. But if you open up an iPhone today, you'll see it's all spanking brand new.
- [07:16]
B
It's a very good point about the democratization and also that it poses this conundrum for a lot of young eco campaigners who don't like mining, but they want gold for their iPhones.
- [07:29]
A
Exactly. You know, the history of gold mining has been a long evolution, and even though people are concerned about the ecological aspects of mining, it hasn't diminished our thirst to have the metal because it affords us these great new examples of technology. You know, early. Just a little bit about gold mining.
- [07:55]
B
Because you've got a whole section in the exhibition on its history of mining, haven't you?
- [08:01]
A
Yes, I do. I think it's very important. You know, especially at Brooklyn museum, we very much like to be very. Have very open conversations about art and all of the aspects of it. And if you're going to have a conversation about gold, you have to talk about how it's mined. Aside from those fortunate few that found gold in riverbeds and streams. And we see more examples of that today. For example, if you watch the television show gold rush, where they're mining the ocean floor for gold, most gold is found in hard earth. And the romans, early on, when they were in Spain, they invented hydraulic mining, which is essentially pounding the earth in a much quicker way with water reproducing what would happen in a riverbed or stream over millennia. So hydraulic mining pounded the earth, releasing the gold. Because gold's frequently found in rocks like quartz, which are very hard. And when the gold rush started in California, people did hydra hydraulic mining, and it was starting to change the landscape of San Francisco. They were eliminating entire hills in order to find gold in them. So a lot of people that were living in San Francisco at that time initiated new laws to forbid changing the landscape for mining. But then we look today, you know, recently in Brazil, in the 1980s, in the Serrapalada region, there was renegade gold gold mining that happened where people from all strata of society were going to get a bundle of earth from this chasm that was created, hoping that inside their small bundle, they were going to find gold. And they used a process called mercury amalgamation, where you would break down the rock and you add a mercury solution to it, and it would coagulate the metals together. You then have to heat it, which then releases the mercury into the environment. So after eight years of serra pallada being this wonderment that was documented by the photographer Sebastiano salgado, it had to be closed, and it became a mercury contaminated lake, and the water from it seeps out into the environment, and it's affecting the indigenous communities that lived around that area. Now, that's an example, because those are small types of mining operations. Larger ones, of course, today have to be more conscientious about it. But there's a lot of organizations founded to help create small production mines that are safe and are not having bad effects on the environment and its peoples.
- [11:06]
B
We've actually had a program on the podcast dedicated to single mine origin, which is all about that. So if anyone listening wants to go back, they can look in the catalogue and hear that. But that's so interesting. And you've got a locket in the show, haven't you, with nuggets of gold dust inside that somebody would have found and wanted to keep as precious?
- [11:28]
A
Yes, we have it. One of the oldest examples of gold in the exhibition is a small petri dish of gold fragments that were found in ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago. And then nearby it, I have this locket which I've borrowed from the American Numismatic Society, which has gold filings and bits inside of it. You know, not every culture has heated gold and made it into coins or other objects. Some cultures just work with the gold and it's the form that they find it in or break it into. And so we have this locket. And then I also have examples from our permanent collection of gold dust boxes from West Africa. So in certain parts of West Africa, they use gold dust as the monetary form, and they are weighed on these scales with these different objects, which are called gold weights. So we have a very beautiful collection of gold weights in our permanent collection. So gold dust is one of the very finest forms of gold, kind of unmanipulated.
- [12:44]
B
What I was interested about, which I didn't know, was your Brooklyn hoard of gold. So that's 180 pieces from the Hellenistic period. So how was that hidden and how was it found?
- [12:57]
A
So that came into the Brooklyn's collection about 100 years ago in the early 20th century. And I should mention that our exhibition is celebrating The Brooklyn Museum's 200th anniversary. And we were really trying to find a medium or a theme that crossed all of the departments in the museum. And so gold was able to span all 18 departments of the museum, plus our library. And so in working with our Egyptian Near Eastern department, I was able to bring out our Brooklyn hoard, which was, you know, hordes. Oftentimes when you hear the word, you think it was one group of material that was from one person buried and then discovered at some point later, the most famous one being the Bactrian hoard. Perhaps. Our hoard was found in southern Turkey, and historians looking at it believe it was a culmination of objects that were put together and then buried at some time. It includes beautiful things like gold acorns, which were either used for necklaces or bracelets. It has gold cicadas, it has very beautiful gold flowers. And some of them were the type of gold flower that you might have sewn onto your tunic at that time to create kind of a necklace like effect. Or there are larger, very fine, like gold foil flowers which would have been used, for example, on a diadem for a burial. So it's clear that the elements in the hoard come from different locations and times, but it was all buried together.
- [14:56]
B
At one point and then it was donated to you 100 years ago.
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A
Yes.
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B
That's amazing. That's fantastic to have in your collection. But I think, as you said, it's across all your departments and I think that comes through. About the goal to meet through your exhibition is that it dominates our life in so many areas. It's the sort of breadth that you have that incorporates gold from, as you say, medieval paintings with gold halos to golden lurex disco dresses to jewelry. I mean, it's sort of everywhere in our life, isn't it?
- [15:32]
A
Well, it is everywhere in our lives, both in real forms and in simulated forms. And in doing an exhibition about gold early on, I would joke with people, could we have picked a bigger topic? And so the question was, how are we going to narrow this down? How are we going to tell the story? Of course, I conveniently had that. It was our 200th anniversary and so I was able to use our permanent collection as the armature for the whole show. So there's 4,000 works in our collection that are either gold or have a gold aspect to them, which I then expanded to also include works, for example, in porcelain or glass that were made to look gold. I brought in those conversations also. But once I had that armature, which was made of 250 works from our permanent collection, I then infused it with fashion and jewelry from really great collections and designers. So in doing that, when you get into 20th century fashion, a lot of the gold fabrics are not actually real gold. They're Lorax, as you mentioned.
- [16:44]
B
And then you seem to me to be just trying to create dialogues and provoke thought between the past and the present by juxtaposing these ancient artifacts with something really contemporary, which kind of did the same job.
- [16:59]
A
Yes, it, it does. You know, we have artworks, for example, like Nam June Paik's golden TV Buddha. So you have an ancient sculpture, but it's on a closed circuit TV camera, bringing it up to today. And you have the Buddha contemplating itself on a video monitor and creating this cycle, which I love, this kind of cycle of looking, looking back, looking back and coming forward, which to me is also like gold itself, which is continually being recycled. I like to say that whatever gold we had 6,000 years ago, we still have today. And it's partially true. And the thing about gold, as you mentioned earlier, it doesn't rust, it doesn't corrode, is that it continually can be melted down and made new again. It's not something that retains its history. Once you melt the gold, all the history disappears. So that's why, you know, for example, we often talk about the gold Columbus you mentioned earlier, taking the gold from South America to Europe. I mean, in doing that, it lost its original history once it was melted down. But I do have in the show a block of gold that was recovered from one of the ships that had sunk during a hurricane. So it's from 1622. And you can actually see what a block of gold looked like from that time.
- [18:35]
B
Wow, that's incredible. I think also, as you talk about that sort of melting down of gold, I think it was when human beings discovered that it could be very malleable and you could beat it, string it, make it into wire, that they began to really experiment decoratively.
- [18:57]
A
Yes. And they also discovered that it could be many colors. So one of the things that people often don't realize is that a lot of the gold that was found in Egypt, for example, was a 10 karat gold because it had a lot of white metals in it. And it was a particular shade of gold that was very bright, called electrum. And so if you see the mask of King Tut, for example, that has electrum in it, though it looks very yellow in all the photographs that we have.
- [19:30]
B
It has a little copper, doesn't it?
- [19:32]
A
A little copper, a little silver and gold. It's interesting because 24 karat gold itself, which is 100% gold, is actually a little bit soft. So if you're making jewelry, for example, example, it's very important to add a little bit of another metal just to give it strength. So I found, like the designer Suzanne Belperon, for example, she liked to work with 22 karat gold. So that it retained its yellowness. But it was hard enough to be a brooch or bracelets or whatever her design might be. But I have to explain to a lot of people because they ask about, what is white gold gold? How is it that gold is white? And typically white gold is 18 karat gold, which means that it's just 75% yellow gold, but it has 25% of another metal. And you ask yourself, well, if the majority of the recipe for white gold is yellow, why does it look white? And so I had, you know, I had to go on a long rabbit hole to uncover all of these details. But essential, essentially, the metals, palladium or platinum that you're mixing with the yellow gold have a much higher tinting power than gold does. And it obfuscates the yellow color because it kind of coats the molecules. And so that's how you end up with white gold, which then allows you to do things like adding copper to create pink gold or rose gold, or adding chromium to make green gold. And in the exhibition, I have examples from Cartier of cigarette cases that they made in the early 20th century, where they mix different shades of gold together in very beautiful art deco patterns.
- [21:26]
B
But primarily, when I look at the exhibition, it screams yellow to me. You don't really have any white gold on display or not much. So people notice.
- [21:37]
A
Yeah, I have one watch just to explain and show people what white gold looks like. Yes.
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B
And who's the watch made by?
- [21:46]
A
Vacheron.
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B
Oh, Vacheron Constantin.
- [21:48]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [21:49]
B
And I see you have an Oscar. A gold Oscar. Whose is that?
- [21:54]
A
That's a Brooklyn story. It's from a man named Paul Jabarra who was born in Brooklyn, and he went on to write the song Last Dance for Donna Summer from the film thank God It's Friday. And for that song, they won the Oscar for best song, they won the Golden Globe, and they both won Grammy awards. So I'm showing all of those, plus the gold records that he received for that song, as well as the. He wrote the main event for Barbra Streisand, Enough Is Enough for Donna and Barbara's collaboration. And then he went on to write the Kitschee song It's Raining Men, which also received a golden record.
- [22:42]
B
That's amazing. So you've got gold in the exhibition representing achievement. How we use that in our vernacular every day?
- [22:51]
A
Yes.
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B
Go for gold.
- [22:52]
A
Go for gold. It's in a section called Crowned From Egyptian Kings to Hip Hop Queens. In that section, we talk about crowns. I also talk about for Example, the laurel wreaths that people used to wear at ancient Olympics. The Brooklyn Museum has one of four known fully extant gold laurel wreaths in our collection. It's so rare.
- [23:19]
B
That was for victors, people who triumphed in ancient Greece.
- [23:23]
A
Correct. Or they also wore them for social occasions. But when I was watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics this past summer in Paris, I saw Aya Nakamura come out in this gold feathered dress. And I said, oh, my God, I have to have that for the show. So I got in touch with Dior Heritage. It turned out that Aya Nakamura, who's the biggest Francophone musician in the world today, got in touch with Maria Grazia at Dior and said she wanted a gown that reference the Golden Phoenix. And we've had several looks in the show that reference the Golden Phoenix. And in this particular instance, they worked with the House of Lesage in Paris and made these gold leafed rooster feathers, which were then all hand sewn onto the dress. And that's what she wore, and that's what we have in the show. And it's amazing.
- [24:25]
B
What were the feathers made out of? Were they gold foil?
- [24:28]
A
They're. They're gilded rooster feathers.
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B
Gilded, so actual rooster feathers. How amazing.
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A
Yes.
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B
That must have taken hours. Yeah, hours and hours.
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A
They had posted an Instagram video at one point showing the production of it, and it's pretty extraordinary what they do. I mean, this is why couture is such an extraordinary means of expression and why those of skills continue to be in demand.
- [24:59]
B
Was it heavy? Does it feel heavy?
- [25:02]
A
Oh, you know, it's interesting. For this particular exhibition, I get a lot of questions about if a dress is heavy or not. This one, since it's gilded feathers, it's not as heavy as, say, for example, there's a Balenciaga gown in the exhibition made from thousands of Tyler beads. And these Tyla beads are small, square beads that have two holes in them, a little bit like the links that you would have on a watch band. Balenciaga made this gown from these Tyler beads, which are 99% glass and 1% gold, but it looks like the whole bead is gold. And so the illusion when the gown was finished is that it looks like the woman is wearing this column of liquid gold. That particular dress weighs 45 pounds.
- [25:58]
B
45 pounds. That's a workout in a dress.
- [26:01]
A
It is a workout in a dress, but, you know, anything for fashion. Right?
- [26:07]
B
I was actually just talking about the St. Edward's crown that is used at the coronation here, the gold crown. And that's five pounds of weight. You think that's heavy, but 45 pounds.
- [26:20]
A
45 pounds, yeah. Well, at least with this particular gown, it has shoulder straps, so it has a little something to help keep it up. Huh?
- [26:29]
B
Not your neck.
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A
Not your neck.
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B
So as well as having it as gold representing triumph and achievement, you've also got gold representing death and the afterlife.
- [26:41]
A
Well, you know, gold. Gold comes up a lot when you think about that ancient cultures and many people thought that ancient figures had gold skin. There are also figures of scarabs in the collection, for example, and scarabs were thought to be creatures that made the sun come back, that they were rolling the sun, and then it would re emerge in the morning. So there's a lot of tales about darkness and light and the afterlife. It's very interesting that the scarab then comes back in some jewelry by Cartier. In the 1990s, 1980s, they were returning to motifs that they had explored in the 1910s, 1920s, when there was this big revival for Egyptian jewelry, when they found king tutorial in Egypt. So we have examples of the scarab bracelet, for example, in the exhibition.
- [27:45]
B
And you have a sarcophagus lid inlaid with gold.
- [27:49]
A
Yes. So this particular sarcophagus lid was very interesting for me because it's draped with gold chains on the front, painted, but it looks draped. And I was looking, you know, as I mentioned earlier, for conversations between our permanent collection and contemporary fashion. And it occurred to me that there were a lot of fashions that were designed using draped gold chain. So, for example, azzedine Alaia in 1989, designed a gold chain dress for Tina Turner for her Foreign Affair album launch. And so we have that beautiful mini dress from Azzedine for Tina. I also have a group of dresses that were designed by a New York duo called the Blondes, and they've done work for people like Carrie Underwood and Billy Porter and J. Lo. So I have a whole suite of looks that they designed for them made from gold chain.
- [28:54]
B
And when you talked about King Tut, you do have a Galliano dress that references that, don't you?
- [29:00]
A
Oh, I do. Thank you for bringing that up. Yes. John had been in Egypt. He was flying over Egypt. And at the same time, he had been doing a lot of research on Christian Dior's 1954 H line. And John was very good, still is. At mashing different cultures and ideas together. So he mashed Egyptian motifs and this H line, and created his 2004 landmark collection, which is just so stunning and tall. You know, it Each of those looks had this length to them, the way that you feel that you would experience someone who was very regal and royal.
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B
Goddess. A goddess.
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A
Goddess, yes, exactly. Exactly.
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B
And one has a replica of King Tut's mask.
- [29:57]
A
Yes. It's a headpiece designed by Stephen Jones, who has worked with John and Dior a lot. And all of the headdresses in that particular collection were done by Stephen. There was one. It was very interesting. It was. It looked like it was a square cube that the model was wearing. And they had actually taken her hair and pulled it over a form so it looked gold. And he, of course, for when we were showing that look in the show, he had to create an illusion of it for us. So Stephen's so terrific.
- [30:36]
B
I love the fact that you've got gold discs and jewelry from the first millennium next to grills and fronts that people wear now, the kind of hip hop jewelry.
- [30:47]
A
Yes. I think it was very important for us to have things from hip hop. You know, I have door knocker earrings in the show and grills were something I had to learn a lot about because I don't wear grills. So I did a lot of reading about dentistry, and there's a long history of using gold because it's biocompatible and it allowed people to do work on their teeth from ancient times till about the mid-1960s 70s, when dentistry had perfected porcelain teeth. At that point, people stop pretty much having gold teeth. But then in hip hop, they like the look of it is something very blingy that you could have a golden smile. So in our ancient pre Columbian collection, we have gold pendants that are a little bit like suns. They're round, but they have faces that are smiling and they have gold teeth. And I love the idea that we could bring these ancient gold smiles up to the present with grills. So I talk about how grills come in different forms. You have ones that are just outlines of teeth that are called frames. If they're solid gold, people call them fronts or golds. And then if you have 10 top and 10 on the bottom, they call those a wall to wall.
- [32:24]
B
If you had one, which would you have, Matthew?
- [32:26]
A
Oh, if I had one. Oh, I think I would just have like one on one tooth for the evening. I think that would be enough.
- [32:35]
B
I think I'd have a little diamond.
- [32:37]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [32:39]
B
Just like a. Just a little. Make your teeth whiter.
- [32:43]
A
Oh, that's. Yes, they have beautiful ones. I know.
- [32:48]
B
And so then you also talk about the real object of wealth, how people have carried gold coins as their wealth around them. And coinage has really cemented gold's association with power and trade and business flourishing. And this gold coins really enabled society to prosper and for people to trade and people to society to flourish.
- [33:13]
A
Well, you know, gold obtained value at a certain point. People decided that gold was something that they were going to attribute a particular amount of wealth too. And it became a way, for example, during Roman Empire, that the empire could pay people with a particular coin. So coins started in a city called Lydia, which is in southern Turkey, which is the same area about where our Brooklyn hoard comes from. And gold coins eventually became used as propaganda also, because oftentimes people like Julius Caesar would have their face on the front of the CO coin. And this was before the invention of newspapers and magazines. So it allowed people to know who was the ruler of a particular empire by their image, which, of course, was idealized on these coins. As happens, there's a great scene in the film Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor where Richard Burton looks at her and says, oh, are those coins of Caesar? And she says, yes, I have many. And she's wearing a necklace that's made out of over 100 gold coins of Julius Caesar.
- [34:31]
B
And you've got one of the necklaces in the show.
- [34:34]
A
I have the prototype of the necklace. In one of the scenes, she wears a gold necklace made from flies, golden flies. And it was made by a company called Joseph of Hollywood, Eugene Joseph and Joan Joseph. And they were known for doing a lot of the jewelry that you would see in what we call today sword and sandal movies. So if you use real gold in film, it's actually so bright that it actually can overexpose the film. And Joseph of Hollywood invented this matte gold finish. So when they filmed it, it looked like gold, gold, but on set it was muted. So I have the prototype of her gold fly necklace in the exhibition.
- [35:22]
B
That's so great. And then you've got a lot of jewellery, ancient, modern, flipping through the cultures, civilization, ages, and the way people worked with gold. You've got Suzanne Belperon, Alexander Calder.
- [35:38]
A
I do. You know, Alexander Calder is very interesting, modern sculptor. He, of course, he invented the mobile and the stable, but when he was little, he used to design jewelry for his sister's dolls. And then when he became older, he designed necklaces for his wife as well as his patrons, like Peggy Guggenheim. And there's letters that he wrote where he wanted to make a necklace, but because gold was expensive, he would ask someone to help him make the necklace. So there's not that many gold. There's a lot of silver, but there's not that many gold. Alexander called their necklaces.
- [36:21]
B
He used bronze, didn't he? Didn't he like the Bronze Age spirals that he replicated or was inspired by?
- [36:29]
A
Yes, yes, he did use a lot of bronze and he did a lot of curls also. But I love that it's kind of a little bit of a continuing history because earlier in the show, I talk about Klimt, and Klimt's father was actually a gold worker. And I was surprised that we don't talk about that more because we often talk about the gold swirls that he has in his paintings, which were inspired by Mycenaean gold. But we actually don't talk about his father very much, who was a great gold worker of the time. And that's how Klimt learned about gold.
- [37:08]
B
So you've really researched every aspect of this.
- [37:12]
A
It's a very big topic, but I researched as much as I could in the time that I had, which was.
- [37:19]
B
How long? How long did you have?
- [37:21]
A
I worked on the show about 20 months.
- [37:24]
B
Oh, wow, that's quick.
- [37:25]
A
You know, once I get onto a topic, it's all I can think about 24 7.
- [37:30]
B
So now with bitcoin coming in and computerized money, what do you think the future of gold in our lives will be?
- [37:41]
A
Well, you know, I think when you spoke earlier about the price of gold today, I feel like it's still going to be something that's stable in our lives. You know, a lot of things on the Internet, a lot of things that are like stocks, for example, it's all a little bit of an illusion of money. And I think it's a little. It's a little bit like when you think about music, you know, for a long time, there was the record album, then there was the cd, and then we went digital, and then suddenly there was the revival of the vinyl record, because people wanted the object. They loved the music, but they also wanted to own something if they were paying money for it. And so I think people like gold because it's stable. It's not going to go away. As we talked about earlier. It's not corrosive. You always have gold once you've bought it. I think once you buy bitcoin, you're not a little bit unsure about it and its beauty.
- [38:47]
B
And obviously, as human beings, we're transfixed by that. And it has a hold in some way on our psyche.
- [38:55]
A
It does. I think in much the same way that the sun does. You know, I think it's why we want to represent figures of our world in gold. We want to immortalize them in gold. I think that's why, you know, the Kate Moss sculpture is in gold. I mean, you know, Mark Quinn was working with her, and he wanted that image to last forever, and it sort.
- [39:19]
B
Of brightens our life. We head towards the light.
- [39:22]
A
We do. We all revere the sun. We all want brightness in our lives. And I think today, after coming out of COVID we're always looking for that little bit of joy, that little bit more brightness. So gold does that for us.
- [39:37]
B
So this exhibition that spans many millennia is just a dot in the history of gold. Do you think it'll go on and on?
- [39:45]
A
I don't see it stopping. You know, gold mining has escalated so much. If you look at the 20th century, we produced more gold in this century than we did in any before. And in the United States, for example, in Nevada, Nevada was the biggest gold producer in the world three years ago. And it changes, of course, because gold deposits in the world get mined, and then they're gone, and then you have to move to a next mine. A gold mine lasts 20 to 30 years, but then you have to go to a new one. So I. I think I don't see our quirks for gold diminishing as long.
- [40:29]
B
As the earth produces it.
- [40:31]
A
Well, we seem to be able to keep finding more and more. So, you know. Yes. The. The earth births the gold.
- [40:39]
B
And I have to ask you, is there a favorite object of yours in the exhibition?
- [40:44]
A
Oh, you know, when I work on an exhibition, I always feel like they're all my favorites, you know, But I think probably in terms of talking about the exhibition, I've probably spoke most about the Mark Quinn sculpture, which I did today.
- [41:03]
B
Yeah. Because it encapsulates. Encapsulates the whole exhibition. It's got elements of everything.
- [41:07]
A
Yes. It references ancient poses, and it references today very much so.
- [41:13]
B
Well, lucky people in New York can get there easily. The rest of us will have to get there before July to see it. And I just hope as many people as possible get to see it after your hard work. And it is so beautiful. And many congratulations, Matthew, and thank you for sharing it with us.
- [41:31]
A
Oh, thank you so much. Is such a pleasure. And good luck with your book launch. It's so terrific.
- [41:38]
B
Thank you. If Jules Could Talk and the ones in your exhibition do talk.
- [41:43]
A
Yes, thank you very much.
- [41:51]
B
Thank you for listening. For this and other episodes of if Jules Could Talk, please go to our website. Carolwilton.com and if you've enjoyed it, please share it any way you can. And we love to have a rating and a comment. So thank you. Join me again in two weeks for the next jewelled nugget when we'll be traveling out to Palm beach and viewing one of the greatest collections of artists jewelry in the world. So see you in two weeks and thank you for joining me. Bye bye. If Jules Could Talk with Carole Walton is produced by Natasha Cowan. Music and editing by Tim Thornton Graphics by Scott Bentley Illustration by Jordi labander.