Art Jewelry: Quo Vadis?

SCHMUCKmünchen, as the new protected label is called, not only offers a curated selection of contemporary art jewelry at the International Crafts Fair. In March 2025, a total of seventeen galleries presented at the Handwerk&Design hall current works by their artists around the special Schmuck exhibition, supplemented by individual stands. The protagonists of Munich’s established jewelry scene were present throughout the city as usual and the spectrum was enormously expanded thanks to exhibitions by numerous national and international galleries, academies and studio initiatives. Karin De Buysere from Beyond gallery in Antwerp explains how important this week is for temporary jewelry galleries. She was a guest at the Hofarkaden with the exhibition Quiet Power. In Belgium, she says, there are no schools, no funding and no exhibition opportunities for studio jewelry. Jewelry is not allowed at art fairs and there is no museum in Belgium that collects it. Munich is accordingly a must, because whereas in New York you only meet American enthusiasts, here you can see the whole world. Her credo: galleries have an educational mission. Despite the internet and social media, one must experience studio jewelry in person. And new initiatives are following the example of the Munich’s Jewelry Week: for example, Gdańsk Jewellery Week will premiere in September 2025.

But there are also some observers who believe that the art jewelry movement, which began in the 1960s, has passed its zenith. Above all, the fact that many reliable collectors are superannuated or have passed away is a cause for concern. Many people wonder who the addressees of tomorrow’s art jewelry will be. And what about the next generation? There are fewer and fewer mentors teaching the craft. In New Zealand, a country with a vibrant and successful art jewelry scene, almost all training schools have now been closed because class sizes were too small. We were encouraged by Professor Dongchun Lee, the head of the Metalwork and Jewelry department at Kookmin University in Seoul, whose jewelry class presented the exhibition Mindful Meaning at the Pinakothek der Moderne. He explains that craftsmanship plays an important role in society because it adds personality and beauty to a living environment dominated by mass-produced products. Furthermore, crafts preserve holistic human abilities that are in danger of being lost in a fragmented and highly specialized world dominated by science and technology. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. But let us hear from some of the artists who exhibited in Munich in March 2025:


Fran Allison – Schmuckwoche (Jewelry Week) in Munich always offers exciting opportunities to connect and reconnect with others from around the world and ‘take the pulse’ of contemporary jewelry, says New Zealander Fran Allison, who has cultivated her contact with the Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria since 2009. On behalf of Creative New Zealand, she scouted young jewelry makers for the special Talente exhibition. This year, Assorted Titbits, one of her early work groups, was on loan from the Dowse Art Museum as part of Galerie Handwerk’s exhibition The Familiar in the Foreign – Jewelry from the Southern Hemisphere. Change/Exchange, one of her most recent projects, was on display at the special exhibition Schmuck. The eleven-meter-long necklace Value Added (30 Hours) takes stock of an experiment that explores the values of commodity, memory, exchange and appreciation. The artist spent hours transforming worn, donated T-shirts into necklaces which she returned to the shirts’ donors as jewelry in return for whatever sort of recognition the donor deemed appropriate.


The Familiar in the Foreign – Jewelry from the Southern Hemisphere at the Galerie Handwerk. One of over 100 exhibitions in Munich in March 2025. Here, Fran Allison from Australia with her Assorted Titbits collection: brooches in the shape of deceptively real sweets.


Fran Allison studied at the Royal College of Art in London and has many years of teaching experience. She was responsible for training the next generation of jewelry makers at the Manukau School of Creative Arts in Auckland until the institution’s closure at the end of 2017. With regard to the development of studio jewelry, she says:
Some changes I have seen: Though jewelers are continuing to push the boundaries conceptually as seen in Munich this year, the closure of many of the hands-on courses not just in NZ but throughout the world has meant that the work is often less skills-based than it used to be.

She regrets that so many sites for practical training have already been closed or will soon be terminated, and not only in New Zealand, with the undesirable result that newer works often lack technical sophistication. The artist is convinced that for jewelry to continue to exist as a relevant art form, makers must not stop addressing current social issues. At the same time, jewelry must always resonate emotionally. And it must be wearable – like the necklaces she makes from used T-shirts.


Fran Allison used worn T-shirts to create the Value Added (30 Hours) necklace. The work was on display in the special show Schmuck at the IHM 2025.


Ruudt Peters – We met the artist from the Netherlands at the exhibition A Perfect match, which was organized by the Tereza Pedrosa Gallery from Asolo, Italy, and staged at the Quittenbaum Gallery. The doyen of jewelry art is showing his brooches from the three series Sebas (2024), Bara (2021) and Nebula (2020), along with drawings that process his chronic headaches in a diary-like manner. Ruudt Peters has strong ties to Munich. Interno, his first spectacularly staged solo exhibition, took place in March 1992 at Marianne Schliwinsky and Jürgen Eickhoff’s Galerie Spektrum, where 14 black-clad men entered the initially empty room, stood in front of a wall with 14 wall hooks and allowed visitors to eye them and the brooches on their lapels before they hung their jackets on the hooks and the exhibition was ready for viewing. Exactly 25 years ago, one of Peters’ works was selected for the first time for the special Schmuck exhibition at the trade fair. He still remembers this enthusiastically: It was so intense! I had never seen anything like it before!


Ruudt Peters at the exhibition A Perfect Match.


Ruudt Peters was honored with the Herbert Hofmann Prize in 2004. Two years later he curated the special exhibition, which had been initiated by Herbert Hofmann. Asked about the future of studio jewelry, the artist, teacher and curator expresses confidence: The young generation is taking a stand and reinventing the wheel. One example is a jewelry initiative by his former students Yotam Bahat and Daniel Jirkovsky, whose Amsterdam workshop also serves as an exhibition space and an informal meeting place. The duo launched an open call for Jewelry Week in Munich: A piece for peace is intended to demonstrate the communicative power of the medium of jewelry for a hopeful manifestation of humanity and creativity.

Artistic jewelry is always about communication! Therefore, I cannot say that studio jewelry is finished, it will surely continue. For me and the young people, this simply means: Make! Make! Make! With the Sebas series, here the Antonella brooch, Ruudt Peters commemorates Saint Sebastian. The garnet stones in conical holes symbolize the martyr's drops of blood.


Beppe Kessler – Beppe Kessler is a painter who makes jewelry and a jewelry maker who paints. Her brooches and sculptural paintings express her unmistakable style. This was impressively demonstrated by the Perfect Match exhibition, which the Italian gallery owner Thereza Pedrosa organized together with Galerie Quittenbaum during Jewelry Week in Munich. Kessler says: For the first time in my 45-year artistic career, I have chosen color alone as the defining material for the brooches. In doing so, the Amsterdam-based artist further blurs the boundaries between fine art and jewelry. Vivid colors flow over smooth aluminum substrates and mix in swirls. On their wearer’s body, a monochrome application on the side of these thin-skinned miniatures lends a three-dimensional effect to brooches and reveals their proximity to the corresponding wall pieces with their high, undulating edges. Beppe Kessler comes to Jewelry Week regularly. It’s a wonderful place to meet my gallerists, exchange works, meet interested people and refresh old friendships.
Brooche by Beppe Kessler, Challenge 2, 2025. Gold, aluminum, acrylic paint, wood. Presented by Thereza Pedrosa, Asola, at Galerie Quittenbaum. © Beppe Kessler.


The artist, who studied in the textile department at the Rietveld Academy, won the renowned Herbert Hofmann Prize in 1997 and again in 2009. From that point on, the outsider achieved membership in the Jewelry Club. Jewelry Week is fantastic, she enthuses: There are more and more exhibitions every year! One inevitably misses something

She particularly liked the exhibition by Despo Sophocleous, Alexander Blank, Mari Iwamoto and Naama Bergman at the Orangerie. She was delighted to see so many new and youthful initiatives during her stroll through the city’s Westend district. Jewelry Week offers wonderful opportunities for newcomers to present their work. After a long time, Beppe Kessler also met Maanami Aoki again, who had taken part in her 2016 workshop Accidents in Material at the Hiki Mizuno College of Jewelry in Tokyo. This year, her brooches Hair of the wood, which were already in development at the time, were among the pieces selected for the SCHMUCKmünchen exhibition. As a teacher, that also makes me a little bit proud, said Beppe Kessler.


Beppe Kessler, too, is one of the leading figures in jewelry art who gather in Munich every March. In 2025, her work was shown at the Quittenbaum Gallery, organized by Tereza Pedrosa from Asola.


Daniel Mayer – After completing his studies in Munich, the portrait and documentary photographer Daniel Mayer assisted photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel and Bill King in New York. After working in Sydney, Milan and San Francisco, he now lives in Munich. He was invited by Christian Hoedl to present his photographs at Schmuckwoche (Jewelry Week) together with works by Alexander Blank, Andrew Lamb, Paolo Marcongolo and Christoph Weisshaar. The photos on display are from the Another World project from 2024. Following his studies with Otto Künzli at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Christian Hoedl curated numerous exhibitions of jewelry art, most recently under his own gallery name C_and_the_Artist. Author's jewelry is accordingly in dialogue with photographic art, which first began to establish itself as an independent art form in the early years of the 20th century.


Christian Hoedl, Galerie C_and_the_Artist, presented Daniel Mayer's photographs alongside jewelry by Alexander Blank, Andrew Lamb, Paolo Marcongolo, and objects by Christoph Weisshaar.


How does Daniel Mayer view studio jewelry after this exhibition?
What I have seen has strengthened my conviction that this jewelry is indeed an independent art form – especially when instead of putting adornment in the foreground, the design’s concept and content are independent of the demand for functionality.
The multifaceted creations of these artists also trigger associations that lead to a different world – a cosmos of the hidden and subconscious, Daniel Mayer explains. These objects open up a space for interpretation that does not stay on the surface, but touches deeper levels. The exhibition at Galerie Versus showed that the dialogue between levels of perception could be developed further.


Andrew Lamb – After graduating from the Edinburgh College of Art, Andrew Lamb earned a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art in London in 2004. He has been a part-time lecturer in silversmithing and jewelry at the Glasgow School of Art since 2009. Lamb’s delicate brooches in minimalistic forms inspire viewers and wearers with illusions and effects of optical art. In Munich, Christian Hoedl of C_and_the_Artist presented the Scotsman’s jewelry together with works by Alexander Blank and Christoph Weisshaar, along with photographs by Daniel Mayer.


Brooch by Andrew Lamb, exhibited by Christian Hoedl at the Versus Gallery on the occasion of SCHMUCKmünchen 2025.


Pop-up exhibitions in unexpected places provide a perfect opportunity for public engagement, creating accessibility in diverse venues, says Andrew Lamb. Although the Munich Jewelry Week attracts visitors from all over the world, Lamb is often surprised how many Munich residents know nothing about the event. The opening at Die Neue Sammlung is always packed, and it’s thrilling to see collectors and artists come together. But is this just a bubble? It is difficult for the public to identify with studio jewelry because the general perception is usually associated with precious metals and gemstones.

Andrew Lamb laments the decline of specialized jewelry galleries as a tragic loss. London, for example, has seen the closure of influential spaces like Electrum, Lesley Craze, and SO, which were essential platforms for jewelers like myself to be discovered. But he had the good fortune to sell through established galleries such as The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, which gave him his first solo exhibition immediately after graduating in 2001. More recently, exhibiting with Adrian Sassoon at TEFAF Maastricht has been an incredible experience, bringing together jewelry and art and exposing the work to a broader audience. It is also positive to put works online and sell them. However, we still need gallerists and curators to choreograph and orchestrate the experience … The international Jewelry Week in Munich and the galleries that champion individual makers are invaluable, says the Scotsman Andrew Lamb.


Andrew Lamb has been a part-time lecturer in silversmithing and jewelry at the Glasgow School of Art since 2009. Following his
participation in the exhibition at Galerie Versus, organized by Christian Hoedl, he emphasizes the importance of Munich's jewelry events.


Karl Fritsch – Born in Sonthofen in Allgäu in 1963, Karl Fritsch has lived in New Zealand for fifteen years. He studied under Hermann Jünger and Otto Künzli at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Regarding his participation in the Munich Jewelry Week, he says: The annual get-together is a wonderful overstimulation on all levels. The time change, 30 hours aboard airplanes and at airports, make this week seem like an intoxicated rush. In 2025, Fritsch staged an extensive exhibition at the Zink Gallery in Waldkirchen, was represented at the Biró Gallery, at the Kunstraum München and at Art Curial in the Hofgarten, and was co-curator of the Goodness exhibition by 27 New Zealand jewelry artists.


Karl Fritsch lives since 15 years in New Zealand. At SCHMUCKmünchen 2025, he exhibited at Galerie Zink, Galerie Biro, Kunstraum München, Art Curial in the Hofgarten, and was co-curator of the exhibition Goodness by 27 New Zealand jewelry artists.


For the rest, I let myself drift in the jewelry soup until I wake up totally exhausted at the other side of the plate in New Zealand. Zink Gallery showed his rings together with works by Dirk Zoete.

What does it mean for this jewelry maker to exhibit in an art gallery along with a painter? I am always happy when my rings open up a new challenge and a different context for my work. Fritsch explains that his oeuvre offers inspirations not only for already converted jewelry lovers, but also reaches other people.
In the exhibition with Dirk Zoete, an artist whom I admire very much, I find the aspect of making and creating particularly interesting and feel an affinity with him. Zoete’s drawings, sculptures and paintings enable Fritsch to see how they are made. I feel a kinship in the approach and I enjoy the unpredictable results. Karl Fritsch is not worried about the low cultural and social relevance of contemporary studio jewelry. There is a lot of nonsense in jewelry as there is in the visual arts. There are misunderstandings about what jewelry can do, but good jewelry will surely prevail. Karl Fritsch has no concerns about that.

Ring by Karl Fritsch, with which he has been counteracting traditional notions of jewelry for many years. Presented in Munich in 2025 by the Zink art gallery, Seubersdorf.


Shelley Norton – Among the crowd of guests at the opening in Handwerk Gallery, we enjoyed a brief and enthusiastic conversation with Shelley Norton, who is regarded as one of the classics of contemporary jewelry in New Zealand. She doesn’t have to think about her status for long: she has had the good fortune to have been chosen to show her work at the major international special jewelry exhibition on five separate occasions, most recently in 2021 and 2023. Norton says that she works very much in isolation, so it’s always great to feel part of a large international community in Munich. In the current exhibition, The Familiar in the Foreign, she is naturally included among the artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, presented by the Dowse Art Museum. Shelley Norton began at an early date to use sculptures made from cut-up plastic bags for her almost philosophical signs on the body. The display case contains one of her cockerel chest plates made of yellow and blue fused plastic. A wide range of associations arise from the tension between the archaic form, which is rooted in Māori culture, and the ubiquitous, malleable, fashionably patterned material. It becomes exciting when the necklace is worn and its wearer relates to the person opposite. When asked about the social relevance of studio jewelry (who would ask such a question at an opening ceremony?!), Norton is quick to respond: For me, if it were worked out in jewelry art, we would have a much more peaceful world.


Shelley Norton explains that it is always great to feel part of a large international community in Munich. In the exhibition The Familiar in the Foreign at Galerie Handwerk, she is one of the artists from Aotearoa, New Zealand, presented by the Dowse Art Museum.


Hansel Tai – I make jewelry and I love jewelry – it’s simply my way of thinking and sharing my thoughts with others, Hansel Tai said at the exhibition The Quiet Power, which Gallery beyond in Antwerp dedicated to its artists. Tai is showing pieces from his Assassination – Voyage to Paradise series. He started the project two years ago, drawing on the ancient Chinese tradition of pearl farming. No matter where you are in the world, if you see freshwater pearls, you can be fairly certain they likely come from China. With his work, Tai also reflects on the ethical issues behind their production, including overharvesting, brutal labor and global trade.


Jewelry artist Hansel Tai, China/Estonia, in the Munich exhibition The Quiet Power by the Belgian Galerie beyond. She now exhibits art jewelry only at international fairs and events.


Tai himself comes from China. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, he moved to Amsterdam in 2016 to attend the Rietveld Academy and subsequently transferred to the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, where he completed his master’s degree under Kadri Mälk. Hansel Tai has remained in Estonia, where he runs his own studio and is married. I love the community there. Estonia has a strong history of contemporary artistic jewelry. There are a lot of good artists and you get energy and motivation for new work. He comes to the Munich jewelry week annually to meet gallerists, visit exhibitions and see old friends from the Rietveld Academy, for example. Every year, there is some spectacular piece. You always find something that touches you and discover new artists. Tai also acquires pieces and exchanges them. He is not particularly worried about the future: There are many young talents. And there will always be jewelry lovers who love the objects and the craftsmanship because they reflect our time.


Necklace Assassination by Hansel Tai, presented by the Belgian gallery Beyond 2025 in Munich.


Text by Ira Mazzoni and Reinhold Ludwig
Portrait photos by Ulrike Myrzik.
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