SM*CK Magazine. Online Free Press for independent artists

Without prior warning, the COVID-19 crisis broke the vicious cycle of jewellery fairs and weeks. Due to the travel restrictions, many countries have adopted, flights and accommodations may not be affordable in the coming months. Difficulties and risks will encourage artists to evaluate events based on the analysis of cost and return. The recession caused by COVID-19 will force organizers who don’t satisfy artists’ expectations for exposure, career opportunities, and sales to improve their services or to close down. Imagination, innovation, honesty, and action are qualities now required to stay in the game, for nothing will remain the same in 2021.
 
Before COVID-19, it was difficult for outsiders to enter the closed circuit of contemporary jewellery and impregnate it with their ideas.
The two-month-long lockdown is a taste of the next two years to come.
Even if economic activity resumes, many companies and freelancers won’t make it; there will be hardly any money for the arts and design sector.
Recession is the word for the economic slowdown and pessimism we are stuck in. When money isn’t available, it won't be easy to sell illusions, because people will look twice at their dime before casting it to the wind. This is the time for ambitious and hard-working people to redesign the rules of the game.
The old game is over. A new game starts soon.
 
It’s a difficult task to make the art-loving public—the prospective customers who will refresh the jewellery scene with their sophistication and standards—familiar with the amazing history, creative potential, and emotional value of the medium of jewellery. This requires knowledge, persistence, reflection, and strategy.
 
SM*CK Magazine’s goal is to make art lovers understand the history and potential of jewellery as an art medium. The digital and print-on-demand magazine strives to bridge art and craft disciplines, to discuss contemporary social practices, and make artists aware of market basics. The magazine also serves as a podium for indies and outsiders—gallerists, curators, artists—to address interdisciplinary art directions, sharing stories of failure and success, and showing readers different cultural perspectives on how to appreciate and use art.
 
SM*CK Magazine comes out three times a year. It is published by ZLR Betriebsimperium (Publisher: Christoph Ziegler / Editor-In-Chief: Loukia Richards).

>> www.smck.org