Next week Cartier will unveil a new collaboration with the renowned Paris-based conceptualist Jean-Michel Alberola. The “Precision of Opposites” installation debuts June 24 at Cartier SoHo and runs through August 4. It is part of the luxury brand’s Artist Meets Artisan initiative.

The project invites leading figures from the contemporary art world to create entirely unique works with the luxury jewelry house, utilizing its vast selection of precious stones and metals, as well as its workshops’ unique expertise. Other collaborators have included Beatriz Milhazes, David Lynch and Takeshi Kitano.

When explaining the thinking behind these collaborations, Cartier CEO Cyrille Vigneron said, “It often happens that some stones are left aside and not used by jewelers because their shape or color is not perfect enough for exceptional High Jewelry creations. However, these stones keep all their energy, beauty, and evocative power.” As such, these materials are offered up to artists for more leftfield creations. The resulting pieces are subsequently exhibited at museums and boutiques across the globe.

Jean-Michel Alberola and Cartier, The Memory (2018). © Vincent Wulveryck, Courtesy of Cartier

Alberola first gained recognition in the 1980s, and is known as a key protagonist in the Figuration Libre movement, which struck a new path between figurative and abstract art. He is known for exploring both text and image within his practice, as well as utilizing found objects, photography, film, pastels and more.

In 2018, Alberola began conceiving a four-piece work with Cartier, titled The Precision of Opposites. Its individual components are identified as “The Memory,” “The Junction,” “The Impossible,” and “The Intruder.”

The first element was based around the principle of a simple, smooth pebble that the artist had found on the beach years earlier. He elevated this humble object by housing it in a jewel-encrusted box featuring green agate, peridot, amethyst and garnet. The piece holds allusions to Francis Ponge’s modernist poem The Pebble, which associates the stone’s immense significance and imprints of memory and trauma.

Jean-Michel Alberola and Cartier, The Intruder (2018). © Vincent Wulveryck, Courtesy of Cartier

This experience led Alberola to explore further possibilities presented by the workshop. In “The Junction,” material properties are explored by fastening together pieces of rough and polished quartz with gold screws, thus considering the many potentials of a single material when handled correctly. “The Cartier artisans are like a family, a group of people who are concerned with the same thing, working with their hands,” Alberola said, when considering the exceptional craftsmanship of his collaborators.

In “The Intruder,” the artist invites viewers to reflect on concepts of value and perception, by creating two rings that appear exactly the same, at least on first glance. He subverts traditional luxury jewelry making by setting a brown diamond in steel, while the other ring features a platinum band holding an ordinary piece of quartz. The question of which holds more worth is open to interpretation.

Jean-Michel Alberola, The Moon (2024). © Olivier Ouadah.

For the SoHo installation, the artist has also produced a painted wall that represents the surface of the moon, utilizing an illustration from Camille Flammarion’s 1880 book Popular Anatomy. In articulating this cratered surface, Alberola references its relationship to precious stones, satellites and rocks from other planets. To his mind, the connection is clear: “The moon is a big stone that floats in the sky”.

“The Precision of Opposites” runs June 25 to August 4 at Cartier SoHo boutique, 102 Greene Street, New York City.