Dua Lipa, Anne Hathaway And Lisa Took To New York’s High Line For Bulgari’s Bold New Art Installation

New York is a city where starry sightings are pretty common, but the vision encountered by visitors to the High Line on Wednesday night would’ve made anyone baffle at the diamond-rare probability of the scene. Not only were Dua Lipa, Anne Hathaway, Lisa and Hudson Williams spotted on the industrial train line-turned-public park that runs along a stretch of Manhattan’s West Side – they did so beneath the coils of a gigantic golden snake, lurching and spiralling beneath the boughs of The Standard Hotel.

As much as that may seem like a hallucination you should probably discuss with your therapist, the pictures here attest to its reality. A clue to what had convened this A-list clique, meanwhile, could be seen slithered about the wrists and necks of the global stars. They were here for the unveiling of Serpenti Infinito New York, the latest in Bulgari’s travelling programme of contemporary art exhibitions and commissions, each taking the Roman jewellery house’s iconic serpentine emblem as a conceptual framework.

The gilded mega-sculpture was the brainchild of Marco Canevacci and Yena Young, the artist duo behind Plastique Fantastique, the Berlin-based artist and architecture studio whose interventionist practice prompts contemplations around perceptions of reality and the experiential limits of human senses through inflatable sculptures of truly dynamic scale. With auroBOROS – a portmanteau of the Latin term for gold and the symbol of the self-eating snake that figures across a panoply of ancient civilisations – their intention was to explore both the transformative, alchemical properties of gold and the serpent’s associations with continual reinvention and transformation.

“We started with the ancient symbol of the ouroboros, but wanted to break open its closed circle and allow it to flow through the city,” says Young. “To create the sense of a creature in infinite motion, with this particular segment emerging from beneath the soil.” Until 20 September, visitors to the High Line will be able to experience auroBOROS at close quarters, walking through and within its looping double helix as the sculpture’s coils reveal themselves. Its gilded surface creates ever-shifting environments that “feel very different depending on the sun, the weather and the time of day,” Canevacci says. “Every passage will offer something unique.” Aptly, the installation reflects the tempos and tempers of a city itself in a constant state of reinvention.

Beyond the serpentine inspiration, and the segmented design that loosely echoes the articulated detailing of Bulgari’s signature Tubogas technique, the relationship between the sculpture and the jewellery house’s product offering is intentionally opaque. Much like its activities currently on show in Venice – the brand is the sole partner of the city’s contemporary art biennale – the activation is an affirmation of Bulgari’s “enduring commitment to art as a universal language that connects cultures, inspires dialogue and celebrates creativity in all its forms,” says Laura Burdese, Bulgari’s newly incumbent CEO.

To commemorate Serpenti Infinito’s arrival in New York, Bulgari has also created five one-of-a-kind high-jewellery pieces, each an artwork in its own right and a testament to the longstanding affinity between the house and the United States. “New York is such an international city, characterised by infinite transformation and multiculturalism,” observes Lucia Silvestri, Bulgari’s executive creative director of jewellery. “And it’s a city that has a very important connection with the maison”. The palpable excitement surrounding Serpenti Infinito’s unveiling on the High Line readily attested to that statement.

On display at Bulgari’s Fifth Avenue flagship, each of the five specially created Serpenti masterpieces evokes a subtle dialogue between the emblem’s heritage and America’s artistic legacy. The Serpenti Falling Drops necklace, worn by Anne Hathaway – a single, collar-like coil of 18kt white gold and diamonds, with a coloured gemstone appearing to emerge from the serpent’s head – echoes the gestural energy of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. A complementary necklace and bracelet worn by Lisa, featuring coral, tanzanites and diamonds set in rose gold, nod to Jasper Johns’s interpretations of the American flag, as well as the “many beautiful pieces in our archive where you can see this creativity with the colours of the flag,” Silvestri says. The 18kt rose-gold Serpenti Ocean Deco necklace, its serpent’s head and tail framing a 17.98-carat cushion-cut rubellite, echoes the colour and exuberance of Miami Beach’s Art Deco architecture. Meanwhile, the Serpenti Helix necklace, worn by Dua Lipa – a diamond-set white-gold serpent slithered around an 18kt-gold Tubogas choker studded with diamonds – recalls the sweeping curves of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum.

Rather than direct homages, each is a testament to the profound, mutual exchange between high jewellery and art – and an example of the two disciplines merging. “At Bulgari, we always start with our own creativity. For us, the most important is to innovate with the Serpenti, a symbol of transformation,” Silvestri says. “But we’re constantly looking to art for inspiration. Art, after all, is a reflection of life.” And one of the few certain facts of life, as the symbol of the serpent has conveyed to civilisations over millennia, is its constant cycle of renewal and transformation.

Via: Vogue