Going Underground: The Jewels of Bernhard Schobinger

Artist list

Bernhard Schobinger

Going Underground will feature 53 pivotal pieces of experimental jewelry and select sculpture from 1968 to the present, with necklaces, bracelets, and rings drawn from prominent private collections and the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The installation will be on view on the second floor of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building September 3, 2026, to January 3, 2027.

Commented Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, Over the course of more than five decades, Bernhard Schobinger has articulated a singular and influential vision for contemporary jewelry, positioning the medium within the broader field of postwar art. This exhibition, the first of its kind in the United States, reflects the museum’s dedication to presenting rigorous, historically grounded examinations of artists whose work has redefined the boundaries of artistic practice.

Cindi Strauss, Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design and Elizabeth Essner, Windgate Foundation Associate Curator of Craft, noted that Schobinger’s practice engages deeply with the material and conceptual legacies of movements such as Dada and Concrete Art while embracing the disruptive ethos of punk. His works operate as complex assemblages in which found and precious materials coexist, challenging traditional hierarchies of value and inviting critical reflection on the cultural and physical histories embedded within each object.

One of the most significant artists working in contemporary jewelry, Bernhard Schobinger (born 1946, Zürich) reimagines it as a subversive medium, using scavenged and alternative materials to reveal their hidden histories: fishing lures and wedding rings foraged over his decades of diving to the bottom of Lake Zürich, near his longtime home in Richterswil; metal and asphalt shards dug out of a decrepit New York City street in the late 1970s; salvaged glass, nails and sawblades.

Going Underground will explore the artist’s work in critical dialogue with the long shadow of World War II, the anarchy of Punk music, and the political and cultural forces that have shaped his life. Schobinger’s aesthetic inspirations include Dadaism and Concrete Art. His Swiss cultural inheritance as well as an abiding interest in Japanese culture has also shaped his jewelry. Schobinger’s pioneering work will invite audiences to explore the ways in which jewelry made from detritus, nature, and precious metalsprovoke new and unexpected meanings.


Catalogue and Public Program
Going Underground: The Jewels of Bernhard Schobinger will be accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue with essays by Cindi Strauss, Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design, MFAH; Elizabeth Essner, Windgate Foundation Associate Curator for Craft, MFAH; Claudia Schmuckli, Holly Johnson and Parker Harris Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; as well by as the artist.

The MFAH will host the symposium Perspectives on Contemporary Jewelry: An International Symposium on September 26, 2026, focusing on Bernhard Schobinger and the German artist Dorothea Prühl’s work and influence across the field. Speakers include scholar Renate Luckner-Bien on an in-depth look into Dorothea Prühl’s life and work; artist Iris Eichenberg, head of metalsmithing at Cranbrook Academy of Art, discussing Prühl’s impact as a thinker, teacher, and form maker; Claudia Schmuckli, Holly Johnson and Parker Harris Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, examining Bernhard Schobinger’s practice and its relation to Swiss contemporary art; and Cindi Strauss, Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, positioning Schobinger's jewelry as part of a global conversation within the field.


Organization and Funding
The exhibition is organized by Cindi Strauss, Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft and Design and Elizabeth Essner, Windgate Foundation Associate Curator for Craft.
Major support is provided by Sara and Bill Morgan.

The exhibition is supported by: Swiss Arts Council, ProHelvetia.

Additional generous support is provided by:
Michael W. Dale Exhibitions; Endowment for Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design; Dr. Sara Sant’Ambrogio; Deedie Potter Rose; Marion Fulk.


About the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Spanning 14 acres in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, the main campus comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden and the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building. Nearby, two house museums—Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, and Rienzi—present collections of American and European decorative arts. The MFAH is also home to the Glassell School of Art, with its Core Residency Program and Junior and Studio schools; and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art.