ARTEFACTUM 3000

Boris de Beijer: Well, jewellery doesn’t feel like a closed chapter to me, but rather a chapter that has been silent for a long time now. At the same time, it’s something that has never really left, because what I’m doing in the studio is still closely related to jewellery. To this day, I’m working with various metals, casting, and techniques like chasing copper and brass. This exhibition also gave me an extra drive to continue, because I actually really enjoy working in detail.

But this sort of obsession with materials, crafts and techniques, especially ancient techniques, actually started with my father because he’s an artist too. His studio was the first place where I came into contact with all these things. You know, he was already chasing copper and making sculptures in ways that nobody else did.

So, in a way, it’s just in our family’s genes. He is still a sculptor. For example, he creates incredibly fine figurative statues made entirely from sheet metal and other materials. But he makes them in such a way that even people with deep technical knowledge assume they were cast. They say, ‘This must be cast; it can’t not be.’ But in reality, he crafts everything by hand from plates and tubes.

It’s fantastic. I know for sure that no one else does it quite like he does, or as well as he does. So, for me, he has always been a big source of inspiration—and still is.

BdB: Yes, for sure. And the older I get, the more I learn about myself, the more I also see this sort of red line that is just piercing through. Since forever, you know, through my life in a way.

BdB: Museum JAN approached me a couple of years ago to discuss a potential collaboration. They knew I was working extensively with glass at the time, primarily on commissioned pieces. After some discussions, they invited me to create a collection specifically for the museum. As you know, the museum specialises partly in glassware and glass objects, featuring many mid-century glass artists in its collection. They gave me ‘carte blanche’ to experiment and work as freely and monumentally as possible, and that’s how the project started.

BdB: Yes, what has always been a big source of inspiration for me is many different forms of applied arts from the ancient world, whether that’s Roman, Greek, Etruscan, or Egyptian. This has always been my inspiration.

Next to that, I have a real passion for working with specific crafts. Glassblowing is a very traditional craft that involves a lot of technique and specialism, and it’s something I’ve started to work with a couple of years ago, even though I am not a glassblower myself.

In a way, and I think this is important, craft has a bit of an underdog position when you look at art in general. I wanted to change that. Maybe a little ambitious, but I wanted to show that it is very relevant. I did that with glass, and I’ve done the same with all my other works.

BdB: Definitely, that’s right. I think it’s both. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a movement where different forms of craft have made a revival. If you look more closely at art and design, ceramics has had a huge resurgence, and so has glass in a way.

Earlier in my career, I organised Unfair Amsterdam and I was part of it for quite a long time. What I really wanted to do was create autonomous art, but for some reason, no matter what I did, I always felt that gallerists and curators treated my work as too applied. I understood it, however, it was really frustrating, and I couldn’t quite break away from it either.

There was a point when I was still involved in organising the art fair, which gave me insight into the other side of the art world, but at the same time, my own work wasn’t really going in the direction I wanted. So I took a step back, and by chance, an artist collective in Amsterdam asked me to make props for their film, which was set in a jazz club in the far future. They wanted small Roman-style goblets, so I made them from resin. This turned out to be a big shift for me because I was able to fully put my vision into them. I noticed that this work was really on the border between fine art and applied arts, and that was a sort of eye-opener.

From that moment on, I really stopped caring about whether my work was labelled applied or fine art. Instead, I saw it as my strength. That was already more than five, maybe even ten years ago. Since then, this has been what I want to do. My work has always existed in this grey area between fine and applied arts. What used to be a source of frustration is now something I see as an advantage. Now I’m thinking that it works for me. I see other successful people doing it, and I think it’s really interesting to always be on that border.

BdB: When I graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy’s Jewellery Department, I was showing all these small speculative objects that were maybe wearable, maybe not. But they all followed the same concept, they evoked a feeling as if you were in a museum from the far future.

So, in a way, when you walk into the Museum JAN venue, you’re stepping onto a sort of set. The pedestals and decor pieces are meant to vaguely resemble parts of a Roman city, with architectural elements incorporated into the show. The pedestals were also literally meant to elevate the work. I wanted all the objects to give you the feeling that they might have been used for some mysterious purpose.

And this concept, which is, of course, very simple and maybe even slightly humorous, is something I’ve always wanted to explore in my work.

So, can I put my finger on a specific piece? Maybe not. But I think it speaks for itself. For example, some of the glass pieces closely resemble medieval glasswork, but the colours are very bright, almost neon. This is where I add an extra layer to it. I loosely borrow elements from history and then overlay them with my own interpretation.

BdB: Yeah, very interesting. A lot of the work I do myself, but when it comes to glassblowing, I leave it to the experts. And as I was saying about these goblets I made from resin, at some point, they were sold all over the world, in places like Paris and Tokyo. Back then, the fashion designer JACQUEMUS asked me to make a collection in glass.

For me, this felt like a huge opportunity. So that’s when I started looking for suitable glass studios. I visited several places, but when I came to Amsterdam, the Van Tetterode Glass Studio felt like the right place because they were so well-equipped. I spoke to Richard Price, a fantastic glassblower. When I first arrived, I was super well-prepared, bringing all my scale models and moulds with me.

But he looked at them and said, ‘Yeah, I don’t need all that. Just draw the right dimensions on a piece of paper here with a pen, and we’ll start making it.’ And literally, on that first day, we made pieces that were exactly as I had envisioned them—if not better—because, you know, I had never seen anything like this in glass before. It was almost a perfect symbiosis.

They liked working with me, and this is what I find interesting about glass. A lot of artists come in with a very specific idea of how they want a certain piece to be, saying things like, ‘This should be a millimetre more to this side.’ But for me, that was never important. I really liked showing the hand of the maker in the process, and that’s what I saw happening when I first walked into the glass studio.

By now, I have a really good relationship with the glassblower, and I’m currently working with Frederic Van Overschelde, who is Richard’s apprentice. He is incredibly skilled. I literally just come in with my very simple drawings, and we start building. Maybe the first one was a bit off, but then we talked about it, I gave him some directions, he tried again, and I was always involved in the process. I’m always there with my colours and my guidance. But yeah, it’s like a dance between me, the glassblower, and the assistant. After years of doing this, we have found the perfect balance.

BdB: Yeah, because I don’t—if the top of a glass hasn’t been placed perfectly on the foot, maybe that adds something. And if you look at ancient glass, they weren’t able to make it perfectly symmetrical either. So this sort of playfulness, these tiny mistakes, for me, that’s what makes it perfect. You know what I mean?

BdB: Yes, exactly. It starts living.