Munich Jewellery Week 2017 Expert Campaigns

Précieux Passages is an international exhibition that highlights the contemporary jewellery youth front. It was born in 2013, arising under the determination of three French artists: Galatée Pestre, Céline Sylvestre and Laurence Verdier. As the first contemporary jewellery festival was about to take place in Paris (becoming le Parcours Bijoux), they wished to show to a general public the great diversity of jewellery. Raising funds with a large crowdfunding campaign, they were able to invite twenty-two worldwide jewellery artists to be part of a major exposition in the heart of the capital city, at the Forney library.

Four years and several exhibitions later, the three artists have become a professional curating team, and many artists of Précieux Passage have won international jewellery awards and recognition.
This year for the Munich Jewellery week, the Précieux Passages artists are invited again to show their latest pieces at l’Institut Français München.

Argentina
Rodrigo Acosta Arias

Belgium:
Jonathan Hens

Brazil
Stella Bierrenbach

France:
Babette Boucher
Aude Medori
Galatée Pestre
Céline Sylvestre
Laurence Verdier

Germany:
Ulrike Kampfert
Christiane Köhne
Nadine Kuffner
Janina Stübler
Caro Weiss

Portugal
Patricia Correia Domingues

Spain:
Angela Bermudez
Edu Tarin

Venezuela
Nathalie Perret

I basically believe that jewellery must be worn, but I am very interested in additional value of jewelry. You do not only to wear a jewellery, but you can also play with it. You may realize a hidden meaning of my piece in a casual way at the first glance.

When you noticed the trick or hidden meaning, you can think of “that?” “I see!” or you may smile unexpectedly. I aim to produce jewellery works in minimalistic style as communication tools, humor in which can connect people wearing my pieces and people who see my pieces.

A series of works using physical tricks: necklaces which can change the color of the left and right chains, necklaces where the color of the ball changes at the entrance and exit, and necklaces/pierces/earring rings which move against gravity.

A series of works with seemingly frustrating motifs such as bombs, dynamite, alcohol, tobacco, bees, drugs and human eyeballs or parts of women and men. Those motifs are reconstructed with wits in the works.

A series of tautology jewellery like a ring wearing a ring, an earring wearing an earring, a ring made of a ring ….

These works, including new works and old works, will be exhibited together.

Twelve HANDSHAKE 3 artists will exhibit at the FRAME galleries (HWM) Munich, in an exhibition curated by Liesbeth den Besten, Sofia Björkman and Peter Deckers.

Background:
HANDSHAKE3 (HS3) is the latest iteration of the ground-breaking HANDSHAKE project which first began in 2011. The project is a mentoring, exhibition and professional development package unique to the contemporary art world, where selected emerging New Zealand jewellers are matched with chosen mentors to accelerate multiple aspects of their practice. It offers a space for established artists to hand over quality knowledge to those asking for a ‘hand’ and is a two-way project encouraging exchange and progression.

In early 2015 the HS3 participants were selected from the former HandShake1 and HandShake2 projects with new challenges, including a professional development programme, two collaboration projects and a series of national and international exhibitions supporting the mentees to work independently from their previous mentor. Initially this was achieved through a collaboration, where the former mentor now becomes the collaborator. Six months later, the results were well received in an exhibition at Objectspace, Auckland, New Zealand, with the opportunity to extend the works further for a show at Platina, Stockholm, Sweden in 2016. This self-reliant focus worked well to facilitate independent and “international-exhibition ready” artists. Art graduates often have to work through dominant institutional influences, with potential for this to also happen with strong mentor relationships. Through the collaborative relationship, a degree of equality first needs to happen, allowin g the relationship to move quickly past traditional or un-helpful hierarchies.

The idea for HANDSHAKE was born out of recognition of the need for ongoing support for talented New Zealand artists after completing their jewellery/art study. HANDSHAKE reverses the old ‘apprentice’ model – here the mentor works for the mentee through feedback and support in a virtual studio space and in the development and refinement of new ideas and exhibition work.

The whole project began in February 2011, founded by Wellington based artist, curator and tutor Peter Deckers. The cumulative ‘knowledge‘ gained from the feedback and professional development sessions is transformed for various quality exhibitions and collaboration projects and reported back via the dynamic HANDSHAKE3 blog extending the reach of the project to also benefit the greater jewellery community. Participating in the HANDSHAKE project is not for the fainthearted. It is not a project for egomaniacs or prima donnas, but more for those with open and sharing minds who are not afraid to pursue new artistic experiences and creative adventures.

A special presentation about the HANDSHAKE project and the collaboration with London based Dialogue Collective will happen at Handwerk–on-Stage, Handwerksmesse hall B1: HANDSHAKE and DIALOGUE COLLECTIVE meet onstage on Saturday 11 March 2017, 15.50 – 16.10.

This will be the third time the HANDSHAKE project features in the Munich Jewellery Week programme.

“Utopia is thus the neutral moment of a difference, the space outside of place; it is a gap impossible either to inscribe on a geographic map or to assign to history. Its reality thus belongs to the order of the text; more precisely, it is the figurative representation that the text inscribes beneath its discourse, and by it’’ Louis Marin from Utopiques, jeux d’espac

Why would anyone want to design an utopia? There are several reasons. The most important one is that utopian thought is essential to human change in all aspects.
Beyond helping to produce this understanding, the purpose of this concept is to help those interested in it to clarify their own ideas, values and desires. Awareness precedes action.
Utopic spaces are sites with no real place but they have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with real space.
In the study of semiotics, utopic space is strictly defined as ‘’a space of transformation’’.
The term utopic space designates the space in which the decisive test takes place and where performances are realized.
Another articulation of utopic space is that it is “a space of signification”, which is not a ‘nowhere’ but a ‘neither-here-nor-there’.
We believe in the transformative inner power of the imagination—a change in our inner space will affect external space.
Here, again, utopic space clearly emerges as a space of transformation, which does not exist in structuring built space but rather in the continual transformation of a space that remains forever flexible: the mind.
Utopia—that it is a continual production of mental space that acts as an “enclave” within a system.
These types of ruminations are interesting for multiple reasons. More importantly, these speculations also direct us back to the question of transformation vis-à-vis utopia. Must the human being be transformed before utopia can be actualised? What types of transformations must occur?
THE PROJECT
The landscape is the container of our utopia, we transform it and it tries to keep growing between the spontaneity of nature and the human action.
As a result of this, the contemporary landscapes are a mixture of dreams, intentions and chance. We put spaces and structures that are filled with experiences, nature, feelings and emotions on a canvas called landscape and we do the same with the jewels that can appropriate the body’s landscape.
Utopic Spaces is a way of materializing through jewelry the meeting of two worlds, two realities and two ways of dreaming. Noha Nicolescu from Romania and Titi Berrio from Colombia appropriated an atelier , a landscape in which a collective dream is built and exposed.

References
Lefebvre, H., (2000) Writing on cities. Blackwell Publishers
Foucault, M., (1984) Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité
Laffoley, P., (2001) Utopic space. The Boston Visionary Cell
Louis Marin from, Utopiques, jeux d’espace

AIRY OBJECTS_LUFTSCHLÖSSER UND ANDERE FLUGOBJEKTE

The exhibition “AIRY OBJECTS” is showing two works of paula.paul, being connected to each other by their thematic point of view: SERAIL . . . LUFTSCHLÖSSER and FLUGOBJEKTE.

The visitor will enter into a world of poetry and daydreams – a world of objects which seem like echoes from our physical environments, apparently being not more than a breath. The most intriguing aspect of this exhibition is the absence of materiality, the lightness and transparency of these striking pieces of jewellery. Nonetheless it is not a dreamer, but a very precisely thinking and working spirit giving birth to these objects.

In spite of their fragile appearance the LUFTSCHLÖSSER-series consists of carefully constructed objects, bridging 2- and 3-dimensionality through their inherent flexibility: although very spacious in their initial form, they can be folded up easily – turning into an almost 2-dimensional form, amazingly different from the original shape.

The FLUGOBJEKTE pieces on the other hand are examining notions of traditional views towards what a “ring” is supposed to be. Deriving from ironic interpretations of “flight” they materialize as fragile, floating sculptures, only marginally tied to their related bases – asking: who is actually tied to whom? The ring to the object, or the object to the ring?

paula.paul
The austrian designer Birgit Reiger is publishing her work since 1999 under the label paula.paul. After graduating from University of Art and Design in Linz she is working on jewellery design and various concepts in this field as well as giving workshops and lectures in jewellery design. She lives and works in Vienna.

Mari Ishikawa’s jewellery objects are delicate structures. They are reminiscent of lichens or leaves.

www.mari-ishikawa.de

Margit Jäschke translates fantasy and poetry into jewels that emanate a mystery.

www.margit-jaeschke.de

Susanne Wagner is a sculptures and video artist. The exhibited work are current, space-grabbing floor sculptures.

www.susannewagner.com

Perfect Strangers celebrates the unconventional, non-traditional, and unexpected by facilitating a chance interaction between eleven strangers, all international Contemporary Jewellers working with experimental materials and techniques.

Plastic, wood, paint, bone, ceramics and randomly found objects meet silver, gold, and precious stones, creating unexpected wearable-scale sculptures that find the boundaries of contemporary craft.

A 24-hour window display creates a fresh and fleeting moment for these perfect strangers to empower each other.

The show juxtaposes unlikely and individual approaches to create a fresh vision of the field. It embraces the contradictory nature of eleven artistic visions that meet. These pieces gain meaning through the dichotomies of treasure, throw away, memory of material, chaos and order, monumental forms and human scale. They hint at past and present, traditional and technological, social interactions, fears and desires.

Naturalness and artificiality are forming an intense bond in Tamara Grüner’s latest works. The game with these opposites is the central theme of the exposition” Time will tell”

Organic shapes or naturally rolling movements made of bones or synthetic material are in a contrast with angular minerals or metals. The single elements are composed to an ensemble until the lines become indistinct. An intense artificiality is produced by rainbow-coloured surfaces, natural materials such as e.g. mother of pearl seem to be virtually unnatural.

Scandinavian studio jewellery is quite inconceivable without her and her oeuvre. Already in the early 1960s, Tone Vigeland’s jewelry featured regularly in what are today considered legendary exhibitions and publications, for example, in the 1961 “International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery” at Goldsmiths Hall London, which first presented to the public the emerging studio jewellery movement. Now Die Neue Sammlung is devoting the grande dame of Scandinavian studio jewellery the first solo show on the European continent outside Scandinavia – 50 years after her first solo presentation took place 1967 in Kunstnerneshus in Oslo.

With their flowing shapes Tone Vigeland’s pieces generally fit snugly despite being made of metal. She oxidizes the light, shiny silver until it is as black as iron. Through contact with the skin the silver regains its play with the light, is lent undreamt-of metallic color variances. Every piece becomes individualized by virtue of being worn. Though the works stand out for their size and volume, they consist of an incredibly large number of minute, hand-worked pieces, small pipes twisted from silver wire, precisely-cut rectangular and round discs, or tiny pellets and rings. Not visible to the naked eye, these tiny elements are joined together. However, they have nothing in common with the coats of chain mail fashionable at the time or medieval armor, but are aesthetic, adorned art testifying to outstanding craftsmanship, and, above all, they are always very wearable jewelry objects. There is something simultaneously modern and archaic about such art on the body.

Born in 1938 into one of Norway’s most famous artist families Tone Vigeland’s artistic training began 1955 at the Statens Håndverk-og Kunstindustriskole Oslo (today Kunsthøgskolen in Oslo). In 1957, she moved to Oslo Vocational College in order to be able to train as a goldsmith. In 1958, she became a member of the avant-garde artist cooperative Plus in Frederikstad, where several of the works she designed as a student are produced in series. The silver earrings fashioned from a simple loop are typical in their restrained simplicity and lines of the style prevalent in Scandinavia after World War II. They were produced successfully until 1985. In 1961 she opened her own workshop and began to create one-off pieces. Since then she has produced many world-famous items, some of which have received several awards. Around 150 of these objects will be on show in Munich. An exhibition in the Gallery Riis 1995 in Oslo represented a move into a different dimension, namely art in architectural space and simultaneously a move away from decorative art that cites the human body. This move from the body to free space appears a huge one, and yet is only logical.

The very highest distinctions have accompanied the artistic works by this extraordinary Norwegian artist. In 1988 she received the Prince Eugen Medal from Sweden, 1996 she was named Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, 2002 she received the Anders Jahre Prize for the Arts, and 2008 the Golden Ring of Honor was awarded by Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst in Hanau.

The exhibition has been produced in close collaboration with the artist. Featuring some 150 works it provides an overview of Tone Vigeland’s studio jewelry from the years 1958 to 1995, an overview accompanied by a selection of objects and sculptures from 1998 until today.

This is the first group exhibition showcasing one of the most exciting Bulgarian jewellery designers working now. Boldly experimenting with materials and forms, they achieve exquisite details, marvellous stories and timeless joy through their pieces.

United by the space – a very special ice cream shop Del Fiore Gelato – their exhibition is an invitation for a pleasant surprise. It will be a jewellery crush from first sight.

Organisers: Studio Komplekt

Four teams, each formed by two co-working artists, one jewellery designer and one from another area of the applied arts. Each team will showcase their joint work around jewellery and the immediate space surrounding or containing it. The central idea of this project is about an augmented exploration of jewellery and a multidisciplinary, co-work approach together with objects from the applied arts using material such as wood, concrete, paper, textile fibres, leather, porcelain etc. Visitors can expect a broad variety of work concepts not only from established artists but also from newcomers. Indeed, this cross-disciplinary project offers another interesting angle of cross-generation work, which is quite unique of its kind. The exhibition jewelleryincase (Schmuck und Hülle) is connected to the exposition IHM / Handwerk & Design at the expo centre – where the previous artist group 2016 is presenting their work in hall B1 / stand #742.

The project is funded by the GEDOK Munich association to support the interdisciplinary work of female artists.

What lies beneath is the subterranean. It’s the dark, the buried, the out of sight.
In their individual ways each of the members of suterranea is engaged with the buried, the stuff that lies beneath, be it literally or metaphorically.

Drew Markou creates forms that at once look futuristic and archaeological artefacts, unlocked from the earth they were cast in. While his process is methodical the outcomes rely on a certain happenstance, a synchronistic event and the final outcome enticingly unpredictable until they are revealed after the sand-casting process.

Rachel Darbourne taps into our childish affections and the recesses and transgressions that may linger there. The familiar cuddly toys, the transitional objects are distorted and transmuted into uncanny, titillating tactile furries that tickle at the boundaries of innocence and other – the stuff that lies just below consciousness.

Nuala Clooney boldly recasts the body, her body, creating part body, part objects that lie in the space of self and other. She explores the sensuous fluids that interplay and intermingle self and other, the dark viscous spaces between felt and feeling.

Bridie Lander, through the use of black, black glass mirror, black enamel, and a menagerie of other material hints at the mystic; the alchemistic; the dark arts. The black reflective surfaces play with the parallels of the ubiquitous black glass of our mediated technological times with the notions of scrying or Claude glass.

Join us on the 9th from10am, to delight your sensuous appetite by consuming a selection of edible, sumptuous and sweet morsels, each inspired by the artists’ work.

This edible interaction seeks to explore food as an artistic medium and how our mouths turn these transient consumables into flesh, the flesh of our own bodies, internalising an aspect of the ‘other’ and connecting the external world with the internal conditions of the body.

The essentially personal works and unequivocal artistic pieces we so eagerly seek to create may be no more than ‘bleeps in the void’ if one considers geological timescales or the vastness of the universe. I believe that within the creation of our beloved “Ephemeral Paraphernalia” our human connection to timelessness and eternal beauty can be found. (Peter Vermandere)

For the seventh time in seven years atelier Von Gierke-Berr is home to an exquisite jewellery exhibition. Peter Vermandere (B) has been there since the beginning, Annamria Leiste (D) is exhibiting for the third time. Laura Siebauer (D), Carine Vanlandeghem (B) and Arnaud Sprimont (B) join for the second time. Unity through diversity would make a good title for a next project of this BelgoGerman group.

Found arises through the daily experience of moving between different streets, observing them and looking at forgotten objects, thus analyzing the context in which we inhabit. The interest with this performance is to bring people together through soft movements and the symbolic combination of hands; It is pertinent to make a reflection from the union and not from the cultural-racial separation generated today.

Found is a piece built from the collection of 100 gloves found on the streets of several European cities, such as: Amsterdam, London, Belgium, Düsseldorf and Berlin. The collection of these corporal extensions arises through the constant observation of the environment during the journeys made from one place to another; This piece was also made with the participation of people who were interested in collecting gloves with me, making it a collective piece.

The construction process of this piece, arose through the photographic record, sketches, analysis of each of the gloves, playing with the figure of the hands, the symbolisms and the connotations that concern in history. Textiles have a complex historical burden in all cultures, making them an ideal field for addressing issues of gender, cultural identity and social status; In this way, codes of interpretation and ideas can be built around these found objects.

The central idea of the piece is to make a structural-spatial connection with all of them reinforcing the idea of union, loss and recovery of forgotten memories. In this sense, Found mimics with the body covering almost 100% of it, to question the limits of space extent in the relationship between body and jewelry.

The interest in this performance, as mentioned before, is to recognize the importance of union and to know that despite the existence of political, institutional and cultural barriers, these gloves talk about us, people who probably do not know each other but who, symbolically shares the same space-time, working people, women, men, children, students, nomads, etc. Found aims to emphasize that we are made of the same material.

Check out her video here on Vimeo

Gigi Mariani uses antique goldsmith techniques such as niello and granulation in order to give his work a distinctive character. The preciousness of the metal disappears, leaving a dark, rough surface. His almost black looking pieces achieve some kind of mystery.

Off the Shelf is an exhibition of work by staff and students of Central Saint Martins, BA Jewellery Design course. For a second year running, the designers are delighted to be returning to show at Vitsœ in Munich. The exhibition follows on from a series of projects where staff and students have displayed their work together in a celebration of the diverse and lively approach to contemporary jewellery and objects.

BA Jewellery Design approaches the subject of jewellery as a conversation between body and object, with originality and innovation at its heart. Based in the centre of London, we enjoy superb links with industry and encourage our students to engage with the wider social contexts of their work while developing their own creative practices and a diverse set of technical skills.

Six jewellery artists and Erco, together in a show reflecting on why LIGHT MATTERS. Unique jewellery pieces interact with innovative illumination in order to create a new subject full of possibilities for interpretations. The viewer is swirled into a game of light and shadow, material and ephemeral, handmade and digital. The silent dialogue between these two realities create an intricate scenery.

Since April 2015, Joya Brava Association (Chile) has been working with Jorge Manilla as the tutor and curator for our latest project “Relatos Habituales” (Common Stories), that presents the work of 20 chilean jewelers.

This workshop, that lasted over a year, had two attended stages in Chile and one from long distance, becoming an alternative to a traditional formative process (specially in a country with limited access to contemporary jewellery oriented education). We had concentrated periods of work, and others much slower and personal.

“Common Stories” presents thus, 20 series of work narrating personal visions on identity, providing evidence to what due to its permanent presence, becomes invisible. Domestic aesthetics, home adornment, aging of materials, patching, precarious repairing, and all sorts of ingenious solutions that transform and keep useful those familiar objects surrounding us, were the starting point of our research. We believe repairing and protecting is a profound Latin American habit that shaped our aesthetical perception.

Katalog is an exhibition of Ann-Kathrin Hartel, Susanne Schwarz and Nadja Soloviev. While the artists work individually on their jewellery, they started an ongoing collaboration of exhibiting together as a collective. Katalog gives an overall impression of their way of thinking and displays the jewellery of the three artists. The exhibition illustrates different perspectives and creates storylines reflecting on contemporary jewellery.

Jewellery exhibitions are often presented in sterile glass cabinets. This leads to a distance between object and viewer and limits the freedom, which could develop in this sensual encounter, to small showcases. At the exhibition tog_ther !, curated by Gisbert Stach and Rose Stach, this is different. Here, the motto is: chairs instead of showcases!

Twenty international author jewellery artists gather with their extraordinary objects to enter into a fascinating dialogue with strongly individualistic seats, from weight bench to sandbag wall.
Christoph Zellweger from Switzerland, for example, presents an interactive chair with a potency enhancing effect, while the droopy silhouette of a male figure with the ironic title Self-portrait has been captured in a stool by the artist Arek Wolski from Warsaw.
Two female artists from Budapest play with cheap pretence and reality. Emese Benczúr forms the words “LET IT SHINE” on a rainbow-coloured surface using ear studs, while Réka Lörincz presents grooming gloves with enticingly glittering golden nails on a lavatory lid in her piece of art titled Woman at Work.
David Bielander, a native of Basel now living in Munich, even transforms the chair itself into a jewellery object by removing elements of the curved armrest of a Thonet chair and shaping them into sausage necklaces, explaining that the sausages had always been present in these chairs and he has now “set them free”!

The contemporary jewellery artist Jing Yang will present her first solo-exhibition ‘KEINE VASE’ at Shanghai Gallery after her graduation. There on display will be her signature series ‚I’m not a Vase‘, as well as an inspiring new series of experimental pieces. Jing Yang will combine video, objects and manuscripts to create a show of intrigues and elegance.

Adria-Alps-Danube Schmuckstücke Gioielli Jewellery 2017

Fifty goldsmiths currently living and working in the European region between the Adriatic Sea and the River Danube will come together to exhibit their latest hand-crafted jewellery designs.

The individual aesthetic of the designs combined with the artistic implementation of each goldsmith’s craftsmanship will initiate an intercultural dialog about contemporary jewellery design.

Visitors are invited to join the extremely active and thrilling scene of European goldsmiths coming from the region Adria – Alps – Danube where ideas, feelings, dreams are realized into breathtaking and impressive jewellery.

This exhibition is a visual dialogue between the artists using the idea of dualities. We invite people not only to see our work but also to analyse, observe, feel, think and discuss without it being a didactic exhibition. We want to create an approximation to the textures, colours and emotions caused by the pieces. We are interested in how people connect visual aspects to personal feelings of memories. People usually think about things in black and white, but we want to know where the middle point is… this exhibition will show emotional and visual confrontations with multi-categorical pieces.

HANDSHAKE: Debbie Adamson, Becky Bliss, Renee Bevan, Nadene Carr, Sharon Fitness, Kelly McDonald, Neke Moa, Sarah Read, Sarah Walker Holt, Kathryn Yeats

Dialogue Collective: Petra Bishai, Isabelle Busnel, Ellie Corp, Velvet Hart, Emmeline Hastings, Victoria King, Timothy Information Limited, Maarit Liukkonen, Darja Nikitina, Natsuki Sawai, Maud Traon, Sorcha Wharf, Anet Wrobel

HANDSHAKE and Dialogue Collective have been getting to know each other in unusual ways. Over the course of one year the groups have been setting each other a series of ‘mini challenges’ through direct exchanges of everyday information. The collaboration brings together two groups of jewellers from opposite ends of the globe.

Through exchanging images and thoughts recorded at set times of the day, the participants began to share their daily lives in different places.

From bucolic scenes of New Zealand to the cityscapes of London. Can modern communication overcome the distance and bring the groups together? Are online conversations as clear-cut as in real life (IRL) discussions?

This social collaboration becomes jewellery as the two groups display their work together under one roof. A communal washing line is strung up between the two sides. The work is hung out to air. Everything is on view. Finally face-to-face the neighbours come together. Can they iron out the differences? Whatever happens it will all come out in the wash.

Group Biographies

HANDSHAKE is a mentoring exhibition and development package unique to the contemporary art world. It is a space where established artists handover some of their quality knowledge to those asking for a ‘hand’ and is a two-way project that encourages symbiosis and a ‘give and take’. The accumulative ‘knowledge’ gained from the feedback relationship and the professional development is transformed for various quality exhibitions and collaboration projects and reported back via their blog: handshakeproject.com.

The project began in February 2011, founded by Peter Deckers. The idea was born out of recognition of the need for ongoing support for talented New Zealand artists after completing their jewellery/art study.

Dialogue Collective was formed by a London-based group of artists with a background in jewellery and silversmithing. The Collective has presented nineteen events to date.

A changing group of artists participate in each event, together with invited guests, all of who have a connection to London Metropolitan University aka The Cass.

Their remit is to develop different and interesting ways to create and show jewellery and silversmithing through collaborative making and discussion.  They aim to develop ways of bringing contemporary jewellery and objects to a wider audience.