Stones: The final Cut / VIRTUAL EXHIBITION

Artist list

Ulla Ahola, Penka Arabova, Alexandra Bahlmann, Vesal Bahmani Nik, Iris Bodemer, Catalina Brenes, Helen Britton, Lin Cheung, Georg Dobler, Patricia Domingues, Petr Dvorak, Ute Eitzenhöfer, Jantje Fleischhut, Warwick Freeman, Karl Fritsch, Elvira Golombosi, Adam Grinovich, Pia Groh, Helen Habtay, Gésine Hackenberg, Carmen Hauser, Stephanie Jendis, Erika Jordán-Mancebo, Margit Jäschke, Vered Kaminski, Ulla + Martin Kaufmann, Beppe Kessler, Sabine Klarner, Julia Maria Künnap, Sihui Li, Yutaka Minegishi, Kadri Mälk, Felicia Mülbaier, Julia Obermaier, Pavel Opocensky, Jiun-You Ou, Renée Pearson, Deborah Rudolph, Kika Rufino, Philip Sajet, Ana Constanza Salinas, Nils Schmalenbach, Bernhard Schobinger, Setareh Shojaeedanaloo, Alejandra Solar, Etsuko Sonobe, Bettina Speckner, Edu Tarín, Terhi Tolvanen, Tarja Tuupanen, Tanel Veenre, Sabine Wehr, Silvia Weidenbach, Reinhold Ziegler

Stones have been a formative element in jewellery for thousands of years and are probably one of the oldest elements of human jewellery. For centuries, precious stones were important attributes of a top-class goldsmith's craft and served as a means of representation. In the second half of the 20th century, a changed, critical reorientation in jewellery design, searching for new forms of expression, led to the use of precious metals and stones, not to use them exclusively in their previous application and as status symbols, but to replace them. Basic materials, found objects and recycling have led to new forms and interpretations in the field of jewellery making. For some years now, however, a change can be observed. The use of gemstones has increased and in some cases has led to a new understanding. The exhibition in the Galerie Handwerk will present jewellery artists of our time, for whom the use of stones in jewellery is an important concern and an expression of their personal handwriting. Some of the works in the exhibition show how topical and symbolically the medium can be used in this process. They achieve their current political and cultural character primarily through the use of stones. This is also how the cover picture of this invitation by Lin Cheung is to be interpreted, which dissolves typical elements of a flag into individual pieces. Internationally renowned jewellery designers are invited to the exhibition in the Galerie Handwerk, protagonists of a technically and artistically unusual use of stones in jewellery, who will show how the use of stones can be expressed today, how they set accents and which new solutions young designers are using to deal with this topic. Important centres such as Finland, Estonia and Idar-Oberstein are to point out how these craft techniques are trained today and transferred to our time. Jewellery made of gemstones, reconstructed stones, natural or paved stones can be found in the exhibition of the Galerie Handwerk, in which 54 exhibitors from 19 countries are participating.

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