A Review of Art Jewelry Night 2019 in Budapest

Article / Review

Published: 17.10.2019

A Review of Art Jewelry Night 2019 in Budapest.

Author:: Art Jewelry Night Budapest

Edited by:: Klimt02

Edited at:: Barcelona

Edited on:: 2019

Exhibition venue.

On the 20th of September the Night of Jewelry Budapest (ÉÉB), a series of programs on contemporary art jewelry, was held for the fifth time. The event was supported by the Studio of Young Designers Association.

Due to the high media echo, there is a huge interest in this small field, that is specially focused on contemporary art jewelry. This year we announced an international competition, that not only gives the opportunity to Hungarian designers to introduce themselves to a highly acknowledged international jury, but international artists can also share their works and bring a new color to national designers in Hungary as well.

As opposed to previous years, this year the exhibition can be attended for 4 weeks, which gives the opportunity to talented artists to show their works to a wider audience. The international competition, that is open to every working jewelry artists, is called CONTROLS/CTRL+S. This shortcut key on the computer keyboard meaning saving a document or a code is a common nature with jewelry design, in which case it could mean saving the moment. Saying this abbreviation has a meaning of controlling, discipline and knowing our limits. The open call’s aim was to find answers for questions like whether the rules control us or the other way around? Do we adapt to the rules or do we overwrite them? Do the traditions inspire us or they make our hands tied? We need to know our own past and limits to be able to improve.

It is important to highlight that the competition’s official language was English, which is important to us in order to find the common language in today's Babel confusion. Safeguarding our values and traditions it is also essential that we understand each other beyond the borders with other creators.

130 applicants entered this year’s competition with 230 works. The 4-member jury evaluated the unity of novelty, the maturity of the concept, choice of materials, workmanship and aesthetics. The member of the impartial jury was Jorge Manilla, a Mexican-born jewelry designer; Erato Kouloubi and Niki Stylianou, jewelry designers from Greece, who are also the organizers of Athens Jewelry Week; and last but not least from Hungary, Etentuk Inemesi who is the editor-in-chief of Artlocator magazine.

The event organizers are: Anna Börcsök, Fruzsi Fekete, Kinga Horányi, Zsófia Neuzer, Nóra Tengely.

5 awards were given between the exhibitors:

ÉÉB Award
The founder team’s award was given to Anna Zeibig, which was a high-value tool voucher.
(see the image below)

Art Collector´s Award
The winner of this award, that was founded by Katalin Spengler, is Emilie Le Dez French jewelry designer, whose art piece will now enrich Katalin’s collection.
(see the image below)

The Athens Jewelry Week Award (AJW Award)
Erato Kouloubi and Niki Stylianou, the organizers of AJW, chose Mária Roskó as their winner, who can participate in the next central exhibition during the 2020 Athen Jewelry Week.
(see the image below)

The Art magazine Award
This award was given by Tekla Róza Szilágyi and Barna Szuda. They chose not one, but three winners, who will be covered in the next issue of Artmagazine. The winners are Aliki Stroumpouli, Gabriella Veszprémi and Fruzsi Fekete’s collaborations and Viktoria Münzker.
(see the images below)

The Fise Award
Róbert Mascher DLA, president of Fise awarded Ildikó Dánfalvi, who has now the opportunity to have her own exhibition in the Fise gallery during next year’s Art Jewelry Night.
(see the image below)

Anna Zeibig
Necklace: Exit, 2019
Oxidised copper, rose plated copper, nut-wood, textile-rope.

ÉÉB Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Concept: We all live our lives according to the observed laws of physics. Are there situations where things are radically different? Where the known rules may not apply? One mysterious object might come close: the elusive black holes. An infinitely small and infinitely dense singularity sits in the center of a black hole which may be an exit from our known universe, sort of a bottomless pit. The gravitational force is infinite at the singularity and the known laws of physics may not apply to its properties. The concave mirror in the center of the pieces shows the observer upside down. The rules of our world do not apply to this upside-down world. We exit our known universe and enter something unknown, a weird, incomprehensible new world. What rules govern this new world? We do not know and we perhaps will never know, all we can do is stare at it from our universe and wonder about its different and mysterious rules which are out of our reach.

Emilie Le Dez
Necklace: Homo Sacer I, 2019
Brass, wood, acrylic, paint, plastic.
From series: Homo Sacer

Art Collector´s Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Concept: Homo sacer (= sacred man) is a status created by ancient Roman law. It defines a person that has been excluded by society, who can be killed by anyone. A person that no longer has any civil rights. The Italian philosopher Agamben defines ´homo sacer´ an individual who is considered an exile from a legal point of view. But for him, there are two perspectives to human life: a biological life (Zoë or naked life) and a political dimension/existence of life (Bios). According to him, ´Homo sacer´ defines a clear and total separation between the two concepts. It means a person that is subject to a special political system, that doesn’t apply or works with human rights. That person doesn’t have its own political existence: everything can happen to him, he is no longer protected by rules or rights. I’m drawing here a parallel between the ´homo sacer´ and the refugee status. I’m trying to describe that moment where a person, who is considered a citizen somewhere (Zôe+Bios) is leaving his common legal framework, not necessarily by choice and has to live a ´vagabond life´ until the political system decides otherwise. My jewelry represents those ´homo sacer´ / refugees and recreates this random movement created by the political system. (The people are moving inside the jewel) The geometrical forms represent the political systems in which we live. This describes the situation of a growing number of humans beings. Totalitarian and criminal systems have used the status of the ´homo sacer´ to exclude and control society. What can we say about the actual world's situation?

Mária Roskó
Necklace: Gesture Jewellery II, 2019
Silver, copper, crayon, epoxy resin, patina.

The Athens Jewelry Week Award (AJW Award) at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Concept: My series ´Gesture jewellery´ deals with the question of traditional functions of jewellery, artistic practices and mark making. During thousands of years the tools for artistic techniques: brushes, pencils, pastels, etc. have taken certain forms that became the norm for those mediums. Jewellery, too, has taken conventional forms across history, however, its function is more abstract than that of artistic tools. My pieces are a blend between jewellery and artistic tools, taking distance from both, reinterpreting their conventions and traditions while pointing out some historical references such as seal rings (that are made for leaving marks) in the case of the history of jewellery, and gestural painting of abstract expressionism in art history. Gesture painting encourages freedom in the expression of emotions throughout movements. However, as the shape of my pieces diverges from the shape of traditional artistic tools, the wearer/performer is invited to overcome the rules established by my pieces, finding alternative ways of holding and using the tools by means of unfamiliar motions of the human body. The three works of the series use three different methods to leave traces on the surface. For the brush-like piece, except the metal and the brush, another material (paint) is needed to leave marks. In the case of the second piece, a material embedded in the metal (the crayon) itself makes a mark on the surface. The object has two sides with two different drawing surfaces and patterns inviting the wearer to apply a dynamic movement while drawing. This series of works was created as the final project for the Art School of Buda (Budai Rajziskola).

Aliki Stroumpouli
Object: Locked finger, 2019
Casted brass.
From series: aVOIDance

The Art magazine Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Concept: A ´chained and locked finger´ is static and fixed by notions, therefore unable to take action. The finger is an element that embodies movement while the locker and the chains are symbols of stillness and inactivity.

Aliki Stroumpouli
Object: Prisoned brain, 2019
Silver, pearl.
From series: aVOIDance

The Art magazine Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Concept: A ´prisoned brain´ is secluded from incoming thoughts and experiences and being unaware of its own wills and desires lacks motivation and spirit.

Fruzsi Fekete
Gabriella Veszprémi
Necklace: Layers of Impressions, 2019
Recycled leather, lacquered brass.

The Art magazine Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Gabriella Veszprémi is an accessory designer. She makes sustainable, zero-waste leather bags and shoes. She collects the tiny rest of leather and she creates new material from it. This way she manages to save the lather waste. In this collection, she works with Fruzsi Fekete jewelry designer.
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Viktoria Münzker Ferus
Collar: Animal Instinct, 2019
Brass, bronze, driftwood, rubies, silver 925, rabbit skull, mother of pearl, ink, micro-granules.
27 x 18 x 7 cm
Photo by: Viktoria Münzker Ferus
From series: Cycles of Nature

The Art magazine Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

Nature has rules. But nature is also chaos. It has multiple possibilities. Amidst the chaos, there is harmony. The freedom of expression lies in nature. We are controlling our outer expressions. We make rules for ourselves because we want to know how far we are willing to go. We go beyond the limits and break the rules because we want to know ourselves. Animals Instinct necklace is made off traditional jewelry materials like metal or mother of pearl, but also an animal skull. The construction is inspired by the natural form of a medusa and Lillies. When you change your point of view, you will see either chaos and confusion, or you will experience creativity and communication.

Ildikó Dánfalvi
Necklace: Soul Mates, 2016
Mild steel, lacquer.
15 x 14.5 x 4 cm
Photo by: Ildikó Dánfalvi

The Fise Award at Art Jewelry Night Budapest 2019.

My work is my biography. In my creation, my memories, my origins, my roots, traditions, places that are emotionally connected to me, have a big impact on me, everything that happens around me. Traditions inspire. I was born as one of the twins. This fact has deeply influenced and shaped my life. I am interested in how this deep bond between two identical people, siamese and identical twins, effects and shapes their physical and emotional condition. What does it mean in their search and longing for a soul-mate where two bodies or two souls grew together. Does One body have two souls or two bodies have one soul? The work presented is reminiscent of human organs that exist and function as a dependant pair. They appear symmetrical but are in fact different. My jewellery is a symbiosis between body and emotion-material and texture, the physical and the meta-physical that aims to create an ever-flowing exchange and tension between one and the other. I understand my jewellery as the symbolic embodiment of an inner condition.