Rhein Stones

In grade school, Eric Rhein designed his own tombstone; at fourteen, he was doing small figures in coffins; and by his early twenties, he'd moved on to heaven, with ethereal winged ceiling sculptures. Today, Rhein, the twenty-eight-year-old Manhattan jeweler-cum-sculptor whose work is on display at both N.Y.C.'s Artists Space and L.A.'s Sculpture to Wear, specializes in ornately embellished headless torsos which, he says, portray, " the ascension of the spirit and the residue that's left behind." To the less godly, his gilt-and-brocade creations�fashioned from fabric and hardware he's scavenged from flea markets and warehouses around the globe�will more likely suggest the worldly courtiers of the Renaissance. But Rhein himself (who's also designed jewelry for soul mate Romeo Gigli, fashion's leading proponent of pre-industrial splendor) sees them as timeless cultural crossbreeds, resonant with parallels to everyone from Botticelli to Alexander Calder.

Ben Brantley
Vanity Fair
November 1989

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