When Mexican artist Daniel Guzman was commissioned to create a limited edition piece of jewellery to retail at the New Museum of Contemporary Art
in New York's Bowery, who better to help him than Gabriel Urist? The
rebel jeweller's collaborators span high art, fashion and street
culture, with clients including Matthew Barney, Zac Posen, Kanye West
and Ghostface Killah. Appropriately, Guzman's show at the New Museum
Double Album explored the relationship between popular music, fine art
and personal identity. The resulting necklace spells out the legend
"Eslavo y Amo" – "Master and Slave" – in 22 carat gold charms. That's
not, as one might imagine, a Hispanic Depeche Mode homage
- instead, the words are taken from a traditional Mariachi song by
mid-century musician Javier Solis, and capture the potent combination
of rock'n'roll cliché, S'n'M iconography and romantic yearning at work
in the best musical lyrics.
