Peter
To place a realistically depicted finger with an engagement ring in a box bearing a striking resemblance (also) to a reliquary may have divergent connotations. In the sense of storing something precious and exceptional in shared existential bonds invoking a configuration, it asserts a conservative (idealistic) standard of perception of this type of jewelry. If it assumes the form of a medallion, it complies with the idealistic vision of the marital bond. But disregarding the Catholic devotion and respect for the remains of saints (in this case Machata’s Saintly Relics are a heretical attempt to redirect the worship of canonized persons in secular, most certainly frivolous forms in the optics of the Church), it could also be a sarcastic and tough realistic memento of the bond which for you could sometimes be a “crown of thorns” or a reliquary, whose contents are long past their “best before” date. And the macabre or on the contrary unearthly trembling or surrealistically hyperbolic range of colors of “engaged” fingers in the mood of Peter Machata’s Relikvie will bring you again “only” to ambiguous (or multi-promised?) and open ends.
—Viera Kleinová