Collar, Kragen der Trauer, getragen auf blutrotem Kleid,

1989

At the beginning of her career, Verena Sieber-Fuchs successfully produced tapestries and textile installations for public buildings. Turning her attention to jewelry, she then began to use unconventional materials, rousing them to new life in her own original way through astounding metamorphoses. Using crochet, for example, Sieber-Fuchs has created a large number of beautiful collars that delight the eye and recall the downy feathers of rare birds. But the lovely appearance of the adornment is then fractured, for example by the black edges of Kragen der Trauer – zu tragen zu einem blutroten Kleid (a mourning collar—designed to be worn with a blood-red gown) for which the artist used preprinted forms for Chinese funerals. The evocative mourning borders allude to the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989, which prompted the artist to produce this subversive commentary on contemporary events. Many of her other works betray a keen sense of humor, for example when, as a very petite woman, she dons the collar When I’m 52, which is made out of labels from large, size-52 clothing. Her jewelry crafted out of bottle caps from beverages that have long been taken off the market or redesigned attests to the far-sighted thinking that goes into her works. Sieber-Fuchs has long since earned a place for herself in the annals of textile art. Her works can be found today in prestigious museum collections worldwide. (Sabine Flaschberger)