Hommage à A. Boetti (ordine e disordine) by Fumiko Gotô. A Future Classic in Contemporary Jewellery

Versión en Español - Spanish version      

When Klimt02 invited me to contribute to this series on jewellery pieces that may one day become classics of contemporary jewellery, I began reflecting, from the perspective of a collector, on which pieces, and which jewellers, might eventually become classics.

Classic and contemporary are two concepts that may seem contradictory, yet they share a common bond: the passage of time. It is time that allows a piece immersed in modernity or contemporaneity to become a classic. Some works acquire a weight that makes them indispensable and unique, offering a narrative that, at first, we may not have been able to perceive.

From my perspective as a collector, and above all as someone who wears jewellery, a piece becomes a classic when it withstands the passage of time and continues to inspire my desire to wear it, regardless of how many years have passed since I first saw it.

Following this idea of time and taking a chronological approach, I have chosen to comment on several pieces from my collection, built over the course of forty years, that today appear just as modern to me as they did when I first encountered them. Now, in the twenty-first century, they have also become classics.

One of the most recent additions to my collection is Hommage à A.Boetti (ordine e disordine) from 2025, a unique brooch by Fumiko Gotô, presented in the exhibition Trilogia: Ressons de Babel, Paraules Guarnides at Hannah Gallery. Fumiko and I share an admiration for the Italian artist Alighiero Boetti, who, for a period of his career, incorporated typography into his embroidered works produced in Afghanistan. This connection is echoed in the brooch through texts recreated in Braille on Elforyn, using jade, carnelian, and mother-of-pearl.

The piece combines formal restraint with literary meaning. Language and communication are translated into a tactile experience, appealing to touch rather than sight. Its minimalist aesthetic, together with its intellectual and sensory dimensions, gives the work a richness that extends beyond its immediate appearance.

These qualities are what, in my view, may allow Tactile to become a future contemporary classic: a piece capable of remaining relevant through time, inviting new readings while preserving the clarity and strength of its original idea.



Why Future Classics?
What Makes a Contemporary Jewellery Piece Become a Classic? Our aim is not to define academic criteria or impose any form of conservatism, but to collect subjective perspectives that help us understand the values and expectations shaping our field, without reducing them to fixed rules or hierarchies. By sharing these voices, we invite you to think together and open a conversation about durability, relevance, and the ways particular works contain certain patterns or enigmas that make them continue to speak over time.

 

About the author

Maria Luisa Samaranch is a graphic designer, book publisher, and jewellery collector, Maria Luisa Samaranch founded the Hipòtesi Gallery in Barcelona (1986–2011), which won the FAD 100 Years Medal in 2003. The gallery specialised in contemporary jewellery before expanding to textiles, glass, and ceramics. In 2005, she founded the publishing house Sd·edicions / Mudito & Co, which won the FAD Medal in 2007 and several Gourmand Book Awards. From 2020-2022, she served as the president of A-Fad, and she is now a board member and one of the presidents of FAD.