Caroline Broadhead at CODA Museum

Artist list

Caroline Broadhead

Jerven Ober, director of the Van Reekum Museum (later merged into CODA) from 1976 to 1984, first introduced the work of Caroline Broadhead (1950) in the Netherlands with the travelling exhibition British Jewellers on Tour in Holland (1978-1979). The exhibition brought together a great variety of jewellery made from non-precious metals; a development that had not yet taken place in the Netherlands but that was given an impulse thanks to Ober’s visionary, trailblazing outlook. At the time, the dogmatic, geometric ‘Hollands glad’ of artists like Gijs Bakker and Emmy van Leersum still dominated Dutch jewellery. Or, as Ober put it in the exhibition’s catalogue, “Things are different on the other side of the Channel. More varied and vibrant, sometimes slightly exotic and often pop-like.” Ober was fascinated by Caroline Broadhead’s work. Not just due to the use of basic materials but also because the form seems to evolve from the material, with the movements of the body influencing the shape and perception of the jewellery. Ober’s fascination with Broadhead’s work led him to stage a solo exhibition in 1980 and acquire a number of works.

The development of Broadhead’s work can be described as a journey away from the body. The departure point is jewellery, meant to be worn on the body, to be touched and be changed by that touch. Gradually Broadhead develops textile forms that follow the human body, that change as they are worn and serve as a metaphor for a person. In later work, she explores the demarcation of the body; viewed in terms of light, shadow and reflections. She is interested in the borders of the individual, between inside and outside, public and private, and in creating a balance between materiality and image. Collaborations with choreographers, where she brings together design and movement in dance performances, allow her to further, and more dynamically, explore her fascination with how objects invite movement. Her interest in jewellery never diminished, however. She compiled two exhibitions about the state of affairs in jewellery art: New Tradition (1984) in the former British Crafts Centre London and Then and Now (2007) in Marsden Woo Gallery London.


About the artist:
Caroline Broadhead’s work is not only part of CODA’s collection but is also included in private and museological collections in the UK and abroad. Broadhead is head of the BA Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins and regularly teaches at various institutes in and outside the UK as a guest lecturer. She received the Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts, Textiles in 1997 and won the Textiles International Open in 2004.

The book Caroline Broadhead (authors: Liesbeth den Besten, Jorunn Veiteberg) can be bought from CODA Winkel at the price of € 28.

Activities

Jorunn Veiteberg, art historian and co-author of the publication Caroline Broadhead, will give a lecture on Broadhead’s work.
If you wish to attend, please email aanmeldingen@coda-apeldoorn.nl or call +31 (0)55-5268565.