Šperkstret 2020: Body Politics and Jewelry

ŠperkStret is an active platform for contemporary jewelry discussions hold by professional jewelers, collectors, art theorists, curators, and the general public. Every edition of the conference is dedicated to a specific topic and the lecturers (professional artists, gallerists, curators, theorists, collectors) are chosen so that they can comment on the theme in a range of individual opinions creating a comprehensive picture of the discussed issue. The program is accompanied also by ongoing exhibitions and a creative workshop.

Body Politics and Jewellery
The mission of contemporary jewelry is to reflect and explore issues that are fundamental to contemporary culture, including the change of view of ornamentation and the human body. What seems to be particularly important is the relationship between jewelry and the current social events in the context of the expression of the personal identity and opinion of the wearer. While wearing jewelry is generally a private gesture, it can be also viewed as a public manifestation commenting on the social, political, and cultural problems of the society as support, protest, non-verbal critical gesture, or generally shared memory. Jewelry represents a person's determination to express their attitude towards political events, membership of social groups or subcultures and to speak in a way that no other wearable object can. The generally shared will to ornament the body with jewelry is compensated by the desire to express some sort of message through it. This gives it the power to become a powerful communication tool in the public space. Even a simple piece of jewelry, a badge, can be served as an active symbol of identification with an equally minded group of people. It is a political manifestation of social and political solidarity. It relates to our urgent desire to identify ourselves as a sympathizer or an adversary and our impulsive effort to define ourselves against something or someone. These small objects are not merely visual mechanisms for different social schemes, but there are identification objects characterized by their power of symbolic gesture.


Virtual Public Lectures:
The online lectures, moderated by Dana Tomečková, will be in English with simultaneous translation and Q&A session afterward.
 

• Every Body Counts - On the Social Value of Jewellery

Jewelry perceived socially and politically while preserving its identity. The lecture approaches the performativity of jewelry as a material object and examines the principles and consequences that result from this. Performativeness opens up the social aspects of jewelry making it possible to get rid of its resentments and to transform itself into a light-hearted form while still making a responsible and socially engaged statement. The lecture is a reflection on jewelry from the other side, from the side of the author and the side of the performativeness, interaction, and social engagement of the small object. To stand on the other side means to look for new meanings, links, or wit life situations for better orientation in the world.
Lecturer: Katarína Defeo Fiúza Siposová (SK)
Date: 3 Nov, 5 pm - 6 pm.
Register here for this lecture.
 

• Jewellery: A Social Political Statement

The origins of jewelry went hand in hand with the emergence of the earliest civilizations one hundred thousand years ago. In this context, jewelry was an indication of individual positions within the society and at the same time, it represented a marker of a specific group belonging to other communities. By wearing jewelry, an individual person marks a position within the setting of a social system, also in present times. Jewelry is not about individuality; jewelry is about an individual’s relations with others. Enhancing this thought makes it easy to identify the strong relationship between jewelry and society, and therefore also to recognize the political potential of jewelry. The lecture shows the usage of jewelry in past and present societies in order to examine to which extend jewelry is and always has been political!
Lecturer: Karen Pontoppidan (DK/DE)
Date: 3 Nov, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm.
Register here for this lecture.
 

• How to Do Things with Jewellery - On the Power of Objects

Jewelry affects the way the body of the wearer is experienced. But in doing so, it also affects the body of the observer. The form and location of an object on a body affect the senses and transform the movement and behavior of the observer. In the process we call jewelry, bodies and objects intermingle as constellations of forces. In my talk, I would like to focus on the connection between jewelry and power. That includes the way an object is crafted and worn to create shifts in the bodies, understood as constellations of forces, involved in the jewelry process. To understand such processes, I will apply certain trends in twentieth-century philosophy to concrete objects created by contemporary studio jewelry and try to delineate how these unfold their impact on the level of the political materiality of the body.
Lecturer: Pravu Mazumdar (IN/DE)
Date: 4 Nov, 5 pm - 6 pm.
Register here for this lecture.
 

• Brave New World

Katja Prins will discuss her practice as a jewelry artist, which has evolved over the last 22 years. This lecture will focus in particular on her fascination with the relationship between technology and the human body. Specifically engaged with how technology functions as our support structure, she is both anxious and excited about the simultaneously healing-protective and toxic-destructive properties of technology. This ambivalent fascination provides her with imagery that is reflected through her work.
Lecturer: Katja Prins (NL)
Date: 5 Nov, 5 pm - 6 pm.
Register here for this lecture.
 

• NUDA VITA The Practice of Collective and Political Body

The lecture focuses on the presentation of the Nuda Vita project, an experience of artistic production that stages the work of some of the most interesting contemporary jewelry artists. The initiative was held for the first time on the occasion of Munich Jewellery Week 2019 and it explored the value and the role of the public, collective and political body, starting from the expression Nuda Vita, coined by Benjamin and then developed by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, interpreted here as an impossible condition, unspeakable concept, and artistic action.
Nudity is not conceived as a physical condition, but as a symbolic event of resistance and sensitization. Concretely the project aims to be an artistic movement, an open and continuous platform of reflection and stimulation to give substance to those studies, which see the body and existence as an area of exploration. The goal is to compare the most varied experiences and to broaden social and political awareness. The great wealth of perspectives and themes addressed by the various participating artists presents jewelry as a means of raising questions relating to major issues of life. It is an act of provocation and resistance, subversion and sensitization, which focuses upon the body, through the medium of the jewel, as a statement of politics, identity, and humanity.
Lecturer: Ilaria Ruggiero (IT)
Date: 5 Nov, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm.
Register here for this lecture.


Accompanying Program
 

• Show Me The Face by Jana Machatová a Peter Machata

Dates: 10 Sep - Nov 8.
Address: Pálffyho palác GMB, Panská 19, Bratislava.
 

• Star Dust by Karol Weisslechner

Dates: 9 Sep - Nov 8.
Address: Galéria Čin Čin, Podjavorinskej 4A, Bratislava.
 

• Like a Broken Record by Maya H. Nepšinska

Dates: 29 Sep - Nov 7.
Address: Galéria NOVA, Baštová 2, Bratislava.
 

• Schmuck wander vol.5

Dates: 22 Sep - Oct 4.
Address: Galéria X, Zámočnícka 5, Bratislava.
 

• AutoportréMY by Martin Grosman

Dates: 24 Sep - Sep 26.
Address: Galéria Cit, Heydukova 15, Bratislava.
 

• Figúra by Ondrej Ďurian

Dates: 9 Sep - Sep 27.
Address: Galéria Umelka, Dostojevského rad 2, Bratislava.
 

• OFELIA by Soňa Kabáňová

Dates: 21 Sep - Oct 9.
Address: vPRIESTORe, Klemensova 5, Bratislava.


For more information and to view the program visit www.sperkstret.sk.


The project is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council, Bratislava Self-Governing Region and Bratislava City Foundation.