Van Cleef & Arpels collaborated with designer Arthur Hoffnerand photographer Erik Madigan Heck to enhance the Perléecollection’s visual universe.
Chosen for their creativity, the two artists have reinterpreted the golden bead motif and bright colors of the Perlée creations in a series of photographs and window displays created specifically for the Maison.
A joyful stroll through Arthur Hoffner’s displays
Van Cleef & Arpels is once again collaborating with designer Arthur Hoffnerto to highlight its Perlée creations. This talented creator has produced new installations that bring the collection’s emblematic golden beads to life in an interplay of balance and suspended movement.
Arthur Hoffner was honored as early as 2017 with the People’s Choice Award at the Design Parade Toulon festival – with which Van Cleef & Arpels is a partner. He first worked with the Maison in 2019 for decors focusing on Perlée jewelry and timepieces. This year, the French artist has once again devised playful displays combining spheres, aluminum tubes, and blocks of marble. Delicatecolored beads seem to drift along multi-dimensional pathways.
This installation showcasing the Perlée collection will adorn the exterior and interior windows of Van Cleef & Arpels boutiques around the world from September 1 to October 15, 2022. Suffused with warmth and contrast, its pink, blue, and gold harmonies pay tribute to the golden bead, a true emblem of the Maison. This decor also inspired a 3D animated film, developed by the Maison in collaboration with Arthur Hoffner.
“The Perlée collection is an ode to the golden bead, to its brilliance, roundness, and movement. This is how I envisioned the series of sculptures and displays that surround it: a colorful world where a ribbon unfurls, enlivening the space with its curves and draping the shapes on which the beads evolve in a well-orchestrated ballet. It was a pleasure for me to continue this collaborative adventure with Van Cleef & Arpels and to find new combinations between my work as a visual artist and this playful and joyful collection, where shapes combine and interact to create a feeling of harmony.” Arthur Hoffner
Arthur Hoffner
From the age of 10, Arthur Hoffner was introduced to ironwork in the family garden. He then pursued his passion for metallurgy with the CoubertinFoundation’sCompagnons du Devoircrafts guild before entering the École Boulle and then Ensci – Les Ateliers. A craftsman at heart, he sits at the crossroads of sculpture and design. He has forged links with designers and publishers like Robert Stadler and Cinna, visual artists such as Théo Mercier and Erwin Wurm, and major manufacturers like Sèvres, Henriot-Quimper, and Hermès. When Maison met the young designer, there was an immediate affinity between his work and the world of Perlée creations.
“There is a very strong correlation between my work and the imagery evoked by this collection, its colors, its presentation. The interaction between moving shapes and joyful colors resonates with my own explorations,” says Arthur Hoffner.
Perlée jewels’ shapes and colors, as seen by Erik Madigan Heck
Once again focusing on Maison’s universe, photographer Erik MadiganHeck highlights the iconic play of color and roundness that is characteristic of the Perlée creations. Graphic decors and perspective effects have produced a series of high-contrast portraits illustrating the joyful spirit of the collection.
“For the Perlée collaboration, I wanted to reintroduce Van Cleef & Arpels’collection to the public within its historical context, but with a modernist approach that sets it apart from the whimsical, fairy-tale aesthetic of the HighJewelry – to keep it fresh and contemporary, with a hint to the 1960s cut-out illustrations.” Erik Madigan Heck
Erik Madigan Heck
Erik Madigan Heck, born in 1983, in Excelsior, USA is an artist working in photography, painting, and film. Heck is the recipient of the international center of Photography’s Infinity Award, the FOAM Fotografiemuseum Talentaward, the Forbes 30 under 30 awards, and The Art Director’s Club Gold Medal for his old Mastersportfolio published by The New York Times Magazine.
In 2019, Heck had solo museum exhibitions at the Musée des Beaux-Art in Le Locle, Switzerland, and the Multimedia Arts Museum in Moscow, Russia; public installations at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Paris Photo, PhotoLondon, and Photo Shanghai; he also relaunched Nomenus Quarterly– a printed journal focusing on the intersection between photography and painting, where he collaborates with an array of artists and institutions. Heck is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, TIME, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and harper’s Bazaar amongst others. He is the author of Old Future, published by Thames & Hudson and Abrams Books.
Since 2019, Erik Madigan Heck has signed several photographic series around Van Cleef & Arpels creations, including acarte blanch in the book floral, published in 2020 by Éditions Xavier Barral.
