Studio Job: Monkey Business

genuinely saturated in the past. Consider Chartres, a bronze cabinet in the form of that city’s cathedral turned on its side, and fitted with gleaming brass doors. (fig. Chartres) The work is devilishly multiple in its meaning. Are these the gates to heaven, with the cruciform plan of the cathedral raised upright like a benediction? On the contrary, is this a sacrilegious or even a satanic gesture, a symbol of the sacred overturned? Or should we not read the cabinet in broader terms, neither religious nor irreligious, but as a tomb monument marking our collective fall from grace? 3 Such multivalence sweeps through all of Studio Job’s works, which are a series of signposts on a constantly forking path. This was true even at the very start: Smeets’ conversion experience in Dresden was not only illuminated by the city’s ancient glories, but also shadowed by its wartime immolation. “It intrigues me,” he says, “that things that are so precious and so beautiful can be wiped away, and then have to be built up again.” There is a heavy strain of the apocalyptic in Studio Job’s work: the skeletoncrew motif of their Perished series; the jagged hole whacked through the heart of their Robber Baron cabinet; the ominous militarism of their Oxidized collection; and the unnamable, coal-black prima materia that spills everywhere from their objects, like petrified smoke. (fig. Perished, Pouring Jug or other) Against this dystopian aesthetic is pitched an equal and opposite quality of shining brightness and decorative exuberance. This is precisely the dialectic that one experiences in Dresden today. Having been remade as a Disney-like simulacrum, the city lacks the patina of time. But one can never forget that its ersatz architecture, like so many wedding cakes set side by side, sits atop a mass graveyard. As always, Smeets refrains from passing judgment on contemporary Dresden and its kitsch extravagance. Instead, he sees it as a grand metaphor for life as we live it: our collective ups and downs, our triumphs and defeats. And for him this makes the Green Vault itself that much more “theatrical, sculptural, tragic.” In this light, we can see the inspired madness of Augustus and his artisans as doing what great art always does: giving evidence of the human will to achieve the extraordinary, even in the face of our own inevitable demise. Smeets has said to me that he does not understand people’s fear of death, or their attempts to live as long as possible. In the grand scheme of things, even the centuries that lie between Augustus and ourselves are a brief flash of time. Likewise, in the centuries that lie ahead, perhaps Dresden will come to look as it did before it was destroyed, the further passage of time lending it gravitas as of old. Or perhaps it will be destroyed again by some disaster we cannot foresee. Studio Job stand within that sweep of history without forgetting its sublime dimensions. Their works mark the pathos and poignancy of our human vanity, the precarious position we necessarily occupy, somewhere between heaven and hell.

8 3 Chartres Cathedral was saved from destruction by Allied bombing on 16 August 1944 only by the heroic actions of the aptly named Welborn B. Griffith Jr, an American soldier. Braving intense fire, he entered the church, searched it for enemy combatants, and signaled the all-clear by ringing the tower bells. Later that same day, he was killed in action in the nearby town of Leves.

Portrait Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel at Studio Job Atelier

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10 Chartres, Aftermath 2009 - 2012 polished and patinate bronze, 24K gilding 170 x 102 x 155 cm Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London - Paris Design Miami, Basel and Miami

11 Big Ben, Aftermath 2009 - 2014 polished and patined bronze, aluminium, brass, 24K gilding, silver leaf, hand paintings, hand blown glass, Westminister clock works and gong, LED fittings, steel construction, polished verde Guatemala marble 240 x 80 x 80 cm

12 Automobile 2012 -2013 Land Rover Defender 90, aluminum, bronze, brass, european oak, faience (ceramic), Swarovski crystals, hand blown glass, hand paintings, harness leather, high gloss PU coating, rubber PS 160, satin lining, silver leaf, slurray, stained glass, Vlisco wax printed fabric, 2k alkyd hand painting, 24k gold leaf 300 x 520 x 290 cm Art, Abu Dhabi

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15 Studio Job Wunderkammer 2014 - 2015 polished and patinate bronze, Swarovski crystals, 24K gilding, silver leaf, polychrome hand paintings, stained glass, paper-mâché, laser cut mirrors, Exposize digital printing, Senso cast flooring, mixed media, Westminster clock works, Piko electric trains and motors, LED and TL lighting, audio 900 x 900 x 500 cm Kristallwelten, Wattens

16 Train Crash Table 2015 polished and patinated bronze, 24K gilding, aluminium 75 x 200 x 90 cm Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London - Paris Design Miami, Basel

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18 Containers II, 2011 Val Saint Lambert crystal works (colored and cut), polished and patinated bronze, gilding, faience, wood, high gloss polished coating 165 x 350 x 40 cm Corning Museum of Glass, New York Design Miami, Miami

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20 Withered Flowers, Archives 2014 NLXL non-woven wallpaper, matte finish 900 x 49 cm (each roll) Cooper Hewitt, New York Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

21 Alt Deutsch, Archives 2014 ICFF Editors Award, New York Elle Deco International Design Award, Milan

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