Some Works. Lecture by Alexander Blank

The artist discussed his search for a language of jewelry through materials, symbols, the body, and everyday experience. His work moves between animal imagery, idols and popular culture, weather, digital images, and the "uncertainty" of the post-pandemic world, exploring the familiar and the unfamiliar, the figurative and the abstract, and the personal and the social.

In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the smiley face became a universal symbol in Europe and the United States. It coexisted alongside the peace sign and the anti-nuclear emblem, conveying hope to the public during a period of political turmoil. Politicians, musicians, and global corporations alike adopted and reshaped it, each projecting new meanings onto this simple face, causing the symbol to continually mutate. It has traveled through history, passed from one context to another, accumulating new meanings along the way. Each generation encounters it as something new—yet every encounter is already haunted by countless previous ones. Today, we still use it every day in the form of emojis on social media, employing it to express joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness.

Certain images detach themselves from the moment of their birth and begin an independent existence—the smiley face is one such image. And when a smiley face ages and fades, a smiley face that has endured the passage of eras and weathered countless difficult and beautiful moments, its face is inevitably covered in scratches, yet it still smiles, reminding you to stay optimistic. Certain images detach themselves from the moment of their birth and begin an independent existence—the smiley face is one such image. And when a smiley face ages and fades, a smiley face that has endured the passage of eras and weathered countless difficult and beautiful moments, its face is inevitably covered in scratches, yet it still smiles, reminding you to stay optimistic.

Toward the end of his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Alex created the Evil Ed and Friends series, which also marked the beginning of an exploration that would have a profound influence on his personal creative practice. Starting with an attempt to hand-carve the head of a frog (Ed), he created a series of animal "portraits" and placed these characters into a 12-minute animated film, letting them speak and move freely. In choosing the animals for this series, he wanted to create a contrast with the animals commonly seen in traditional jewelry. In Western cultural history, lions, tigers, eagles, and the like are often endowed with symbolic meaning, whereas the animals he selected—including frogs, snails, canaries, raccoons, turtles, and so on—hold no particularly important status and have almost never played any special role in heraldry, symbology, or high culture. They are marginal and not serious enough, yet in many myths and fairy tales they are portrayed as more human-like. This made Alex feel they were better suited to be "companions"—perhaps somewhat like the mythical creatures people once believed accompanied witches and sorcerers (for instance, in the world of *Harry Potter*, every wizard has an animal companion or patronus).

Using the Ed series as a springboard, Alex delved deeper into another series—Memento Juniori. Looney Tunes is a classic animated series launched by Warner Bros. starting in 1930, which created many household-name cartoon stars. When Alex rewatched the animation, on the one hand, he was surprised at how few personality traits these characters were given; on the other hand, he was deeply impressed by the positive energy they conveyed. Especially the "villain" characters, who often appear comical and lacking in wit, always making fools of themselves. Yet strangely, they never give up on their goals, fighting on despite repeated failures, as if they were running bit parts with their very lives. They seem to be pursuing not just results, but also finding satisfaction in the process of every attempt.

When reminiscing about childhood, people may remember many great figures who deeply influenced them, but Alex wanted to commemorate these "little people." He imagined carving out the skull of each cartoon animal—a trace of their existence as "life," and a microcosm of the soul. He wanted to preserve them like amulets, as if treasuring that precious, brave, and childlike youth.

I'm going to Florida.

This line frequently appears in popular culture, becoming lyrics or dialogue that express a desire to "escape." The capital of fun, the Sunshine State, Disney World, Cape Canaveral Spaceport—this too is the Florida that Alex envisioned in his memories. Yet ideals and reality always diverge. Can a journey to Florida truly satisfy people's yearning to escape reality?
Perhaps one's ideal fantasyland is not some far-off shore; it should be like a silhouette against the backlight, floating weightlessly on clouds like a feather, distant and sublime.

Alex admits that there is always a streak of "mischief" in him, which is not hard to see in many of his works. But Florida suddenly becomes somewhat cold and stern, its tone shifting from fervent to profound. His works are multifaceted, and he also has very delicate thinking and expression regarding the relationship between the body and jewelry—for example, the Backflips & Summersaults series.
Thermal imaging technology can present images of thermal radiation invisible to the naked eye—emanating from objects or the body. Heat is energy; it represents signs of life.

In the Backflips & Summersaults series, the colored spots on the back of the brooch mark the area where the brooch comes into contact with the body, transforming abstract temperature data into visible chromatic shifts. It reflects a state of being "in between"—the tiny, invisible gap between jewelry and body becomes an "interstitial space." Here, the jewelry senses the body's temperature and leaves a physical imprint, while the wearer's emotions, expectations, and intangible meanings also permeate into the jewelry through this virtual space.

This event also marked Alexander Blank's first visit to China and his first collaboration with a Chinese university. Alongside the lecture, he led a workshop titled Faces in Jewelry: Identity, Tradition and Contemporary Expression. Starting from the long tradition of faces and portraits in jewelry, the workshop explored how contemporary jewelry engages with identity, individuality, and social relationships through the image of the face.


Text editor: Xiao Liang