Masterworks from the 80's to 90's. A Curated Selection by Hannah Gallery from Maria Luisa Samaranch's Private Collection

中文版 - Chinese version      

Artist list

Vicki Ambery-Smith, Gijs Bakker, Marta Breis, Caroline Broadhead, Peter Chang, Norman Cherry, Lin Cheung, Xavier Domenech, Karl Fritsch, Lluis Gilberga, Nuala Jamison, Esther Knobel, Nel Linssen, Angeles López Ante, Marc Monzó, Peter Niczewski, Ramon Puig Cuyàs, Wendy Ramshaw, Sarah Stafford, Janna Syvanoja, Mecky Van den Brink, David Watkins, Beatriz Zingg, Rian de Jong

Byung-Chul Han states in his essay The Crisis of Narration that narratives create bonds, connect us, link us, and save us from contingency. Narrating and listening attentively each requires the other to take place. The narrative community is a community of people who listen attentively. Whoever listens attentively forgets themselves, and immerses themselves in what they are hearing. Only narration elevates and unites us through a shared story of transmittable experiences that make the passage of time meaningful.

Within this discursive context, we, as curators, wish to take on the role of narrators, and in this case, of a particularly creative moment, of an expression of the feeling of an era. The method we have used, after many years of curatorial work, is to once again apply the principles we internalised long ago (which one might describe as ingredients), by assessing in each piece the degree of reality density, the clear execution of the idea, the mastery of technique, knowledge of the artistic mode of expression, a minimum of transcendent content, and a sufficient synthesis of mystery.

Through these criteria, we seek to present a narrative that makes sense. And in this case, making sense means generating coherence, consistency, and facilitating the understanding of the creation exhibited in this event.

As Walter Benjamin says, quoted in the aforementioned essay, narration is not explanatory. Narration, in the most classical sense, shows, and for that reason narration never exhausts its strength; its strength remains stored within, and even after a long time, it still maintains the capacity to grow and develop. This, we believe, is the curatorial task. We hope that the exhibition we present to you can be an understandable narrative of a moment of excellent creation that, at the same time, tells us something about our reality and how we can build it through the experience and work of artists, who are essential elements in our cultural ecosystem.

/ Hannah Gallery


Mònica Gaspar, Art Historian, comments on the exhibition in her text:

Reshuffling the Archive
 
Contemporary jewellery is increasingly becoming well-represented in the collections of art and design museums worldwide. While these institutions partially digitise their collections to make them globally accessible, it is not always self-evident to encounter contemporary jewellery on their permanent public displays. For this reason, the exhibition of masterworks from the 80s to the 90s at Hannah Gallery offers a valuable opportunity to get to know the most emblematic period of contemporary European jewellery in an unusually close way. The exhibition brings together 35 works from the private collection of the graphic designer, book publisher and jewellery collector Maria Luisa Samaranch, director of the Hipòtesi Gallery.
 
In 1986, Hipòtesi was the first gallery specialising in contemporary jewellery to open in Barcelona, in the context of developing this artistic medium and emerging design culture in the city. Today, to display works from the 80s and 90s is to recall a crucial and controversial moment of jewellery history, epitomised in the European Contemporary Jewellery exhibition organised by La Caixa and Orfebres FAD in Barcelona in 1987. Extremely successful in the public media, this show was internationally acclaimed as a game changer, a point of no return for some critics, and for others, the crystallisation of jewellery as artwork. From the front row, Hipòtesi gallery followed the developments of this movement, becoming an internationally prestigious showcase until its closure in 2010. Under the lead of Maria Luisa and with jeweller Margarita Kirchner as exhibition coordinator, the gallery produced many exhibitions featuring national and international artists and designers. Furthermore, publishing numerous catalogues and monographs played an important role in the dissemination, research, and documentation of the field.
 
Selecting artists to be represented by the gallery, making exhibitions and collecting are closely related activities, especially when Maria Luisa purchased a few pieces for her private collection from most exhibitions. All these gestures of curating build upon each other, but other than in a replicating mirror effect, they are always different. For the exhibition at Hannah Gallery, Maria Luisa put together a pre-selection of works, which confronted Amador Bertomeu and Leo Caballero with the pleasure and challenge of marvelling at and scrutinising before making their own choices.
 
What could be their own curatorial contribution to a selection of a selection of a selection of the most hypercurated and overpublished (not necessarily in direct proportion to the number of critical narratives) period of contemporary jewellery? Trusting their experience, they followed their unerring team intuition («we always agree in 99% of cases», would they exclaim), guiding their choices for over 20 years. As gallery directors, they always seem to pose the question of how excellence manifests, regardless of whether they judge emerging talent or rediscover historical work. Venturing a definition based on Hannah Gallery’s mission statement, this must be a remarkable materialisation of an aesthetic language issued out of research, memory, purpose and character.
 
Their selection attests to Maria Luisa’s predilection for experimental work made in materials other than metal, like Nel Linsen and Jana Sivanova’s paper jewellery, Caroline Broadhead’s early work with plastics or Rian de Jong and Peter Niczewski wooden pieces. Some choices help explain the local historical context, like two pieces by the Catalan pioneer Marta Breis, representing the first purchases made by Maria Luisa to furbish the gallery for its opening. The Candy neckpiece by Mecky van den Brinck seemed to be a must: it has a cult status for having been worn by star designer Xavier Mariscal, portrayed in the European Contemporary Jewellery exhibition catalogue. The British Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins have deserved special attention, like an exhibition within an exhibition. Wendy’s iconic sets of rings displayed on acrylic stands and the wheel brooches by her husband, David Watkins, are accompanied by a 1960s Op-Art brooch developed by the couple as a playful cheap jewellery and, finally, a chain by Wendy beyond the time frame of the exhibition. The set testifies to a long friendship with Maria Luisa and a regular collaboration in publishing their catalogues. From the 1990s, works have been chosen predominantly in metal, adding a figurative character to the curators’ selection with the miniatures by Vicky Ambery Smith, fragments of architecture by Xavier Domenech or the ironic Holy Sport brooch by Gijs Bakker. Tongue-in-cheek, the curators break their self-imposed chronological frame and select pieces by Marc Monzó (2001), Lin Cheung (2003) and Karl Fritsch (2004) as if inviting the audience to look closer and ask questions about the meaning of mastery beyond age, gender or skill.
 
The exhibition recollects a fearless moment in the history of art jewellery; when pushing boundaries of skills and materials, jewellery became a body-related art form, a medium of personal expression and social comment. However, the curators’ purpose is more activist than laudatory: Exhibiting contemporary jewellery from previous decades promotes historical awareness amongst younger artists and informs an emerging community of collectors while helping to create more inclusive networks of expertise and passion about the art jewellery field. Memory is not taken for granted, and histories are situated narratives that can change over time. The founders of Klimt02, the internet platform that back in 2004 digitalised the contemporary jewellery scene in a groundbreaking way, know what it means to keep questioning the archive, online or onsite, nurturing history with new interpretations to prevent digital amnesia: Do not forget to press the «reset» button from time to time.
 
/ Monica Gaspar


Maria Luisa Samaranch, graphic designer, book publisher and jewellery collector, comments on the exhibition in her text:

Building a Collection

(...) My collection – which has been considered a 'collection' since 1986 – was built up over nearly 40 years and is based on the same assumptions as the Hipòtesi gallery: zero discrimination and openness to any idea, possibility or execution. My private interests, like those that defined the direction of Hipòtesi, have always had a broad view of the field of jewellery, encompassing contemporary jewellery, ethnic jewellery, costume jewellery and artist jewellery, among others. (...)

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