Andres Serrano

Chus Bures creates miracles. Each piece of jewellery that emerges from his workshop boasts a complex genesis, stemming from an intersection between his genius-level thought processes and his maverick lifestyle. From exploring the versatility of buttons, to accentuating the geometric planes of the human body (Infinity Lines, 1990), and using minerals to emulate and exaggerate human features (seen in the striking 'Mae Nam' Collection of 2000), Bures' work is always perplexing, always stimulating, and always innovative. He refuses to be cowed by convention, and delights in challenging his clients and models. The bodily focus of his work makes every piece a startling, and often uncomfortable, insight into humanity. Bures may be a maestro of metal - the gauzy chainmail-esque veils in his Crochet collection, 2000, attest to that. Yet he has mastered the emotional dimensions of his jewellery as well as its physical properties. The relationship between his pieces and the people who collect and cherish them is essential to his artistic praxis. In Chus Bures, Portraits & Jewellery (2016), this is realised through a series of intense portraits by Antoine d'Agata, Alberto Garcia-Alix, and Andres Serrano. These pictures reveal a transgressive melding of jewel and subject: man becomes metal and metal becomes man. Watch ideas take on physical form, and immerse yourself in Bures' world of wearable art.

This doctoral dissertation shows that Lk 2:22-39 reveals the identity and mission of Jesus. The presentation passage picks up many of the main features of Jesus contained in the previous episodes in the Lukan infancy narrative, and adds important features not present in the other pericopes: the Temple as a privileged place of revelation, the universal offer of salvation in Jesus, and the divided response in Israel. These distinctive features of the passage are subsequently developed throughout the progression of Luke- Acts. The significance of the passage increases as it is related to additional parts of the Lukan composition. Simeon's characterization of Jesus, particularly in his commission statement with its universal salvation and divided response, is fulfilled not only in Jesus, but, surprisingly, also in his disciples. This is verified in the common architecture seen in the narrator's characerization of the protagonists throughout the entire macro-narrative. The passage proves the narrative coherence of Luke- Acts and the unity between Jesus and his disciples. It has both christological and ecclesiological implications: the universal offer of salvation implies a rejection; it affects not only Jesus, but also his followers, the reader included, who is invited to configure himself or herself with Jesus' disciples in Luke-Acts and, through them, with Jesus Christ.