Paradoxical Phenomena in Contemporary Jewelry. A review of Budapest Jewelry Week 2022

The existence of Budapest Jewelry Week is no longer a question, and those who have been following the event since its inception can see how it has evolved. In recent years, renowned experts such as Gisbert Stach from Germany and Jorge Manilla from Mexico have joined the event - the former performing a knife-throwing show in 2018, and the latter holding a game-changing experience workshop in 2019. Dan Piersinaru, the founder of the Romanian contemporary jewelry fair Autor and contemporary jewelry magazine AUTOR, has been a special ally of the Budapest Jewelry Week organizers since 2018 when he visited Budapest and inspired the exhibitors. And this year, brooch specialist Daniela Malev held a five-day workshop following the event.

The organizers did not only focus on the far West but also invited near neighbors, thus strengthening East-Central European professional cooperation. This is how visitors were able to see the works of Jana Machatova and Peter Machata within the walls of the TOBE Gallery. The couple, who have also delegated exhibitors at the Šperk Stret International Conference of Contemporary Jewellery in Slovakia, brought their internationally significant, high-quality, and coherent work to life in the exhibition The Edge of Banality. And although it may seem a small thing, in solidarity with the war situation, the organizers of Budapest Jewelry Week offered free entry to Ukrainian artists participating in the PARADOX competition. The international spirit was further supported by the fact that the designers of the Portuguese Tincal Lab were welcomed by the Kredenc Coworkshop Studio and the contemporary jewelry designers of the Romanian Jewelry Week were hosted by the Leanzer Newcraft.

The central exhibition has always played an essential role in the chronicle of the program, providing a fresh and topical account of the diversity of contemporary jewelry year after year. Looking back to the days of Covid, in 2021, the organizers created IDOL, an exhibition where the greats of the foreign contemporary jewelry scene presented their work in the magnificent György Ráth Villa of the Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts, introducing visitors open to the applied arts to the best of European contemporary jewelry and bringing these globally renowned objects within reach. Then, in 2022, the pandemic calmed down, and the recovery began: this year’s Paradox call received a record number of entries. In light of the quality of the event and the exciting satellite exhibitions, it is no exaggeration to call it a true celebration of seven days of concentrated contemporary jewelry across Budapest, for the eighth time.

The stakes are high. Contemporary jewelry is as much about social issues, messages, and personal stories of the artist as it is about contemporary art. While the public has become accustomed to the latter’s legitimacy, contemporary jewelry often leaves you feeling toolless, with nothing to hold on to - one encounters the objects when the idea of wearability reflexively kicks in. This is perhaps one of the most difficult things to get across to the public, especially in this part of Eastern Europe, where jewelry is still, in most cases, an heirloom, a souvenir of an important life event, or a glamorous fashion accessory - in short, something wearable to adorn ourselves with. It feels good to wear an aesthetic piece of jewelry or a family relic that means a lot to us, and it can be just as satisfying to get to know and understand contemporary jewelry that is not only attractive but also carries the added value and message that the creator or artist intended to express. Those who wear contemporary jewelry are not dressing for fashion, but are becoming a supporter of contemporary art and applied art, and are happy to make this clear to the outside world. This is the mission of Budapest Jewelry Week, which reaches more and more people (lay and professional alike) every year.

The Art Jewelry Night of Budapest was launched in 2014 in a difficult situation, as a one-night event, and after overcoming the disadvantages, it grew bigger and bigger in 2021 under the name of Budapest Jewelry Week. And finally, in 2022, the Hungarian jewelry design profession and the public could enjoy the event for the eighth time.

In light of all this, the organizers of the event -Zsófia Gizella Biró, Fruzsi Fekete, Zsófia Neuzer, Mária Roskó, Nóra Tengely- did a great job, as they prepared a rich and varied professional program -Gijs Bakker and Charon Kransen held lectures- they coordinated more than a dozen exhibitions across the Hungarian capital, and last but not least, they organized the international contemporary jewelry competition PARADOX, which finally took the form of an exciting and colorful exhibition in the center of Budapest.

Freedom - Observation - Self-Exploitation - Burnout - Yolo - Modesty - Sexual - Freedom - Global - Local. These were the questions that the jewelry designers who took part in the Paradox competition sought to answer, and the best of them were selected by the eminent representative of the profession, Gijs Bakker, as a one-man jury. The designers responded in a wide variety of ways to the topic of self-contradiction. Some approached paradoxical phenomena from a physical and visual point of view and a good number of designers who explored the contradictions and depths of social groups or their own personal histories.

Visitors were free to get lost in the ‘sea’ of contemporary jewelry installed in the white cube - scannable QR codes alongside the exhibits and a printed brochure provided some help in understanding. Entering the gallery space, the first thing we could see was the Duplicity collection by glass and jewelry artist Márta Edőcs, who had created it exclusively for the event. The artist uses the mirror installation to highlight the back of the jewelry - drawing attention to the basic human attitude that instead of revealing our flaws and weaknesses, we only show the ‘prettier’ side of ourselves to the outside world (other jewelry by Edőcs was also on display on the backlit billboards promoting the event).

Before exploring the Paradox jewelry, we encountered Namkyung Lee’s ethereal group of objects, reminiscent of both Gothic and modern stained glass windows. The Korean artist won the Budapest Jewelry Week Award as a participant in the In Fieri competition of Brussels Jewelry Week 2022 and had the opportunity to showcase her work at the event in Budapest in September.

Just as the jewelry of Katalin Jermakov, Cristina Celis, or Eszter Sára Kocsor addressed paradoxical perception and visual illusions in an imaginative and spectacular way, so did the Spanish Eva Fernandez with her False Pearl Necklace. Her work explores the idea of memory, where the absence of circles cut into acrylic blocks reveals a pearl necklace - this year she won the Brussels Jewelry Week Award.

German designer Kirsten Plank faced a similar challenge with the loss of a loved one. The artist’s Jürgen R.I.P. piece is a necklace that falls apart and can only be worn in a broken form: the elements of the deconstructive composition are bound together, but the portrait of Jürgen with glasses is only visible when the wearability of the necklace is no longer needed and all the components are in the right position, in one place. Plank deservedly won the Charon Kransen Art Award with her work.

Three of the awards of the Paradox exhibition were given to Hungarian artists: one of them is Nóra Tengely, who, in line with her previous work, again built on the collision and juxtaposition of pairs of opposites (industrial chain, pearl necklace), highlighting the change in the masculine and feminine principles. This year, she received the Collector Award of Katalin Spengler (and the Gallery Alice Floriano Award as a participant in the Why exhibition).

The young artist Antal Zilahi’s work Touch won the Autor Award. The blurred fingerprint appears on the silver surface of the glass applied to the organic phone case, thus revealing the gesture, the simple movement that we make hundreds of times a day: touching the screen of our smartphone and in this form, choosing the right emoticon, trying to express our feelings, our state of mind, and trying to connect with others who do the same. 'Is this the quality of touch we want?' asks the designer.

Fanny Chelia Khirani’s macaque brooches are the opposites of the familiar three wise monkeys: instead of modestly covering their eyes, covering their ears and mouths, they roar, stare suggestively with amber eyes, or listen with their enormous ears. The monkey trio confronts us with our own human anger and instincts. With her collection The Three Not So Wise Monkeys, the young jewelry designer was the winner of the JOYA Barcelona Award.

Among the satellite exhibitions, we must mention four winners. Firstly, the exhibition of Anna Börcsök and Marcell Égi, which focused on narrative jewelry. The two artists created boxes, relic holders, in which they concealed secrets, reminding the viewer not to see a piece of jewelry as a functional object, but to see its hidden content (‘protects, reminds, marks, reveals’ were their catchwords).

Sapi Szilágyi’s Budai Smukk exhibition was also deservedly popular: the jewelry designer presented an extraordinary collection inspired by the Budai Pop album by the Hungarian band Ivan and The Parazol. The collection of objects, made using a colorful cloisonné technique, was displayed in special collages and also introduced visitors to the (perhaps increasingly popular) men’s jewelry trend. The objects of Fruzsina Zalavári and Miklós Laufer put shapes in focus in their exhibition entitled Tár.

There were many examples of how diverse and exciting contemporary jewelry could be at the Paradox exhibition. For example, Mária Roskó’s a set of hand objects, which resemble tiny pebbles and might even belong to a cabinet of curiosities, but on closer inspection one will find amorphous shapes that retain the artist’s handprint. Colorful and futuristic, yet very simple and elegant, is the work of Marcell Égi, who used PLA and stainless steel and even paid attention to the creative titling called Parabox. The ring, which could be considered a unisex piece, and the capsule-shaped jewelry box (most reminiscent of some kind of smart home device) almost blend together when the ring is placed in the right position.

At first glance, the armchair in the exhibition space did not seem unusual: visitors might not even have noticed that the furniture included a small stone jewel. Xiangzhi Zhao’s work is called Screw? - a screw protrudes from the bottom of the humorous ring and attaches to the armrest of the chair so that the ring can only be worn if the user takes a seat. Only in this position can the jewel be worn, but only the person sitting in the chair is aware of this altered (life) situation, and to the outside world, their behavior may appear completely normal.

The works of contemporary jewelry designers exploring womanhood, femininity and female identity were beautifully displayed on one wall of the exhibition space, where the female body is liberated, masturbation, for example, is no longer a taboo, and the sight of a woman’s nipple is no longer forbidden - these are the messages Joanna Bacas’ jewelry speaks. But there’s also Purificación Díaz’s red knitted necklace, which is, as the artist puts it, A cry of freedom of the perfect wife.

At the award ceremony, Gijs Bakker addressed the large audience and expressed his sincere appreciation for the turnout. Indeed, the room was packed with professionals (both foreign and Hungarian) and enthusiastic visitors. And how nice it would be if not only once a year, during the seven days of the Budapest Jewelry Week, many people could celebrate the diversity and richness of contemporary jewelry together.


The award winners of the 2022 Budapest Jewelry Week:

Paradox exhibition prizes
Author Award: Antal Zilahi (EN)
Brussels Jewellery Week Award: Eva Fernandez (ES)
Award by Charon Kransen Art: Kirsten Plank (DE)
JOYA Barcelona Award: Khirani Fanny Chelia (EN)
Collector Award of Katalin Spengler: Nóra Tengely (EN)

Affiliating exhibitions prizes
Founding Team Award: Anna Börcsök, Marcell Égi (...Narrative)
Gallery Alice Floriano: Nóra Tengely (Why)
FISE Award: Fruzsina Zalavári, Miklós Laufer (Tár)
Student Sponsor Award: Zina Szabadszállási-Tóbi (Titok - Exhibition of the finalists of the National Goldsmith Competition)
Tincal Lab Award: Anna Börcsök (...Narrative)
Octogon Award: Sapi Szilágyi (Budai Smukk - Sapi x Iatp)

National Goldsmith Open Call prizes
I. Vocational high schools 9th -12th grades
Brigitta Eperke Kovács, Code-breaking rings
Teachers: Boglárka Imre, Regina Kaintz
Institution: Kisképző Secondary School of Visual Arts

II. Vocational high schools 13th year and OKJ training 1st year
Luca Rebeka Vigh, Body signs
Teachers: Anna Börcsök, Éva Veres
Institution: Szombathely Art High School and Technical College

III. Works of students and university students actively participating in the 2nd year of OKJ training and beyond
Balázs Palikó, TRAPhone
Teacher: Orsolya Kecskés
Institution: Szimultán Art School

More information on the exhibitions and the exhibiting artists can be found at www.budapestjewelryweek.com.


This text was translated by Luca Makai.
 

About the author

Kitti Mayer is a design theorist who graduated from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in 2013. She is a freelance journalist and project manager based in Budapest. She has worked as an editor at Hype&Hyper online magazine mainly focusing on exciting design projects and brands from Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked as a design manager for several Hungarian design brands. A few years ago she also fell in love with contemporary jewelry, she finds it an exciting and inspiring medium that should deserve more attention in Hungary. She is the curator of TELEP Gallery in Budapest.Photo by Dániel Gaál.