Minimal Art
Exhibition
/
05 Apr 2006
-
10 Apr 2006
Published: 29.01.2007
Brooch: Cubo rosso positivo, 2000
Yellow gold, enamel
7 x 7 x 7 cm
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
The works of the initiators of minimalism in jewellery, together with those of younger artists who have adopted similar techniques, also show independent characteristics diverging from those of their predecessors.
Artist list
Michael Becker, Aldo Boschin, Georg Dobler, Thomas Gentile, Therese Hilbert, Helfried Kodré, Fritz Maierhofer, Francesco Pavan, Tore Svensson, Graziano Visintin, David Watkins
The exhibition MINIMAL ART collects the works of artists whose expression of geometrical abstraction is based on absolute shape reduction. In jewellery, this principle marked the production of the American Minimalists. In New York in the 1960s, some artists proposed and shared a series of stylistic criteria, such as tridimensionality, modularity, the choice of pre-fabricated, serial models, and the frequent use of technological materials. Minimalism rejects any ambiguity and visual illusion in images, which are often uniformly repeated without inner associations but rich in spatial relationships.
Since the 1960s, American minimalist theories have spread to Europe, especially to Holland and Germany. There, in the early 20th century, artistic movements like De Stjil and Bauhaus had experimented with extreme geometrical models, and jewellery, as a three-dimensional entity, was presented in static, rigorous shapes.
The exhibition “Minimal Art” displays the works of the initiators of Minimalism in jewellery, together with those of younger artists who have adopted similar techniques, but who also show independent characteristics diverging from those of their predecessors. Two German artists stand out for their diversity: Michael Becker, who arranges series of gold shapes in mathematical relationships; and Georg Dobler, who transforms metal frameworks into spatial cells which suggest organic development.
Austria is represented by two artists whose training is completely different. Fritz Maierhofer approached Minimalism after a kaleidoscopic experience in the 1960s British Pop Art. While associating technological materials, he does not hesitate to use gold; at the same time he transfigures plastic, which was essential in his early Pop production, into clusters so difficult to recognise that they resemble the clay bricks serially arranged by the American sculptor Carl Andre. Hilfried Kodré, whose early works are influenced by Symbolism, now produces abstract pieces of particular sculptural and architectural spatial rendering.
The Englishman David Watkins, a teacher and director at the department of Metalwork and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art, London, alternates large-scale installations in parks and museums with pieces of jewellery that place the body as a spatial focus enlivened by intersecting lines of necklaces and brooches. One of the artists who first introduced Minimalism into jewellery, Watkins has recently inserted natural elements and human profiles into his production, which, in their context, are reduced to graphic signs and add to their perspective depth.
The major Italian contributions to this movement come from experimentation carried out by the Paduan school. Between the 1960s and 1970s, the kinetic elaborations of Francesco Pavan, influenced by research on visual perception under the influence of the well-known Gruppo Enne, was led to apply a rigorous artistic language in which reiterated solids, in their constant and undefined associations, highlight their uniformity and autonomy. The artist later abandoned his minimalist work for new studies on material-structure, which gave rise to his production of original fabrics. In the 1990s, he resumed it, with a series of mainly cubic golden volumes, coloured with glazed enamel, which he emptied and linked to show the continuity of the space flowing through them.
Another important Paduan artist dedicated to Minimalism is Graziano Visintin. His early works, empty three-dimensional structures crossed by solid shapes, are followed by recent axonometric pieces, the tridimensionality of which is an optical illusion. For the first time, the artist uses colour, produced by blending enamel and niello and tiny pieces of gold leaf. These materials create the effect of an emulsion, which never suggests actual material, but which appears as natural oxidation or surface growths.
The Venetian Aldo Boschin is another artist associated with the Paduan school. Influenced by the maestro Bruno Munari, Boschin has produced kinetic works for years. His recent creations have become more static, accentuated by solid portions made luminous with LEDs. Just as for the American sculptor Sol LeWitt, fluorescent light does not tend to modify images or create deceptive appearances, so for Boschin it affects volumes or parts of them, enhancing their weight and existence.
The work of the Swedish artist Tore Svensson is similar to Visintin’s in their common use of constantly different materials for rigorous creations. In Visintin’s work, the rendering of surface texture seems casual and discontinuous; in Svenssons’s, it is consciously planned to provide precise portions within geometrical figures.
The work of the American Thomas Gentille is minimalist in that it blends painting and sculpture, one of the characteristics of the movement. His variously coloured planes are joined by tiny, identical steel screws that repeat themselves on thick surfaces of wood or transparent methacrylate. The artist also joins bi- and tridimensionality by creating brooches whose depth makes them look like boxes from which abstract flat shapes emerge in relief.
Therese Hilbert is the only woman exhibiting here, showing that, although the greatest initiator and artist of this movement was the late Emmy Van Leersum, in fact few women experimented with Minimalism. Hilbert, originally from Switzerland, but now associated with the cultural environment of Munich (Bavaria), pursues the ideal of purity of the Dutch Leersum. However, her shapes are enlivened with a whirling spatial tension that moulds them from within.
It should be noted that the only important exhibition of minimalist jewellery was held in 1979 at the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim. Only two artists exhibited their works on that occasion, Therese Hilbert and Otto Künzli, an important artist and teacher in Germany.
Graziella Folchini Grassetto
Since the 1960s, American minimalist theories have spread to Europe, especially to Holland and Germany. There, in the early 20th century, artistic movements like De Stjil and Bauhaus had experimented with extreme geometrical models, and jewellery, as a three-dimensional entity, was presented in static, rigorous shapes.
The exhibition “Minimal Art” displays the works of the initiators of Minimalism in jewellery, together with those of younger artists who have adopted similar techniques, but who also show independent characteristics diverging from those of their predecessors. Two German artists stand out for their diversity: Michael Becker, who arranges series of gold shapes in mathematical relationships; and Georg Dobler, who transforms metal frameworks into spatial cells which suggest organic development.
Austria is represented by two artists whose training is completely different. Fritz Maierhofer approached Minimalism after a kaleidoscopic experience in the 1960s British Pop Art. While associating technological materials, he does not hesitate to use gold; at the same time he transfigures plastic, which was essential in his early Pop production, into clusters so difficult to recognise that they resemble the clay bricks serially arranged by the American sculptor Carl Andre. Hilfried Kodré, whose early works are influenced by Symbolism, now produces abstract pieces of particular sculptural and architectural spatial rendering.
The Englishman David Watkins, a teacher and director at the department of Metalwork and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art, London, alternates large-scale installations in parks and museums with pieces of jewellery that place the body as a spatial focus enlivened by intersecting lines of necklaces and brooches. One of the artists who first introduced Minimalism into jewellery, Watkins has recently inserted natural elements and human profiles into his production, which, in their context, are reduced to graphic signs and add to their perspective depth.
The major Italian contributions to this movement come from experimentation carried out by the Paduan school. Between the 1960s and 1970s, the kinetic elaborations of Francesco Pavan, influenced by research on visual perception under the influence of the well-known Gruppo Enne, was led to apply a rigorous artistic language in which reiterated solids, in their constant and undefined associations, highlight their uniformity and autonomy. The artist later abandoned his minimalist work for new studies on material-structure, which gave rise to his production of original fabrics. In the 1990s, he resumed it, with a series of mainly cubic golden volumes, coloured with glazed enamel, which he emptied and linked to show the continuity of the space flowing through them.
Another important Paduan artist dedicated to Minimalism is Graziano Visintin. His early works, empty three-dimensional structures crossed by solid shapes, are followed by recent axonometric pieces, the tridimensionality of which is an optical illusion. For the first time, the artist uses colour, produced by blending enamel and niello and tiny pieces of gold leaf. These materials create the effect of an emulsion, which never suggests actual material, but which appears as natural oxidation or surface growths.
The Venetian Aldo Boschin is another artist associated with the Paduan school. Influenced by the maestro Bruno Munari, Boschin has produced kinetic works for years. His recent creations have become more static, accentuated by solid portions made luminous with LEDs. Just as for the American sculptor Sol LeWitt, fluorescent light does not tend to modify images or create deceptive appearances, so for Boschin it affects volumes or parts of them, enhancing their weight and existence.
The work of the Swedish artist Tore Svensson is similar to Visintin’s in their common use of constantly different materials for rigorous creations. In Visintin’s work, the rendering of surface texture seems casual and discontinuous; in Svenssons’s, it is consciously planned to provide precise portions within geometrical figures.
The work of the American Thomas Gentille is minimalist in that it blends painting and sculpture, one of the characteristics of the movement. His variously coloured planes are joined by tiny, identical steel screws that repeat themselves on thick surfaces of wood or transparent methacrylate. The artist also joins bi- and tridimensionality by creating brooches whose depth makes them look like boxes from which abstract flat shapes emerge in relief.
Therese Hilbert is the only woman exhibiting here, showing that, although the greatest initiator and artist of this movement was the late Emmy Van Leersum, in fact few women experimented with Minimalism. Hilbert, originally from Switzerland, but now associated with the cultural environment of Munich (Bavaria), pursues the ideal of purity of the Dutch Leersum. However, her shapes are enlivened with a whirling spatial tension that moulds them from within.
It should be noted that the only important exhibition of minimalist jewellery was held in 1979 at the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim. Only two artists exhibited their works on that occasion, Therese Hilbert and Otto Künzli, an important artist and teacher in Germany.
Graziella Folchini Grassetto
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