French jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels brings the story of Noah’s Ark to life in “L’Arche de Noé,” a collection of 60 animal clips that includes diamond-bedecked parrots, giraffes gleaming with emeralds and sapphires, and deer resplendent in spessartite garnets. On display at Cedar Lake in New York City from Nov. 3–19, the ornamental menagerie finds a vessel of its own in the form of an immersive installation conceptualized by artist Robert Wilson, who evokes the ship’s engulfing darkness with his signature use of light and space. Arvo Pärt’s tinkling “Spiegel im Spiegel” lends the scene a meditative quality, while the jewels act, according to Wilson, “like a heaven of stars, a kind of navigational chart for the ark.”
(Photo: Lucie Jasch)
