Why Do You Wear Jewelry? This Triennial Event in The Folk Art Museum Tells You.

On the afternoon of November 7, 2018, the 21gr: 2018 Hangzhou Contemporary International Jewelry and Metal Art Triennial was opened at the China Academy of Art Folk Art Museum, from 25 countries and regions. A total of 155 well-known educators, artists and scholars from 50 well-known institutions participated in the exhibition, forming a high-level jewellery and metalworking academic feast worldwide. In addition to the exhibition, international experts will open multi-dimensional seminars on November 8 to show the most avant-garde metal art creations at home and abroad and promote the development of the overall discipline of jewelry and metal art.


21g --2018 Hangzhou Contemporary International Jewelry and Metal Art Triennial, Exhibition venue.


21g--2018 Hangzhou Contemporary International Jewelry and Metal Art Triennial, speech at the opening.


Speech by Jiang Xu, Dean of China Academy of Art.


Speech by Professor Ruudt Peters, one of the curators and an internationally renowned art master.


The opening of the exhibition coincides with the winter solstice day. The fun of harvesting is beautiful, and the organizers have arranged for the guests to have a cake (image below) weighing 21 grams to send the theme of the exhibition weight to each person.




The theme of this exhibition is 21 grams, not only the concept of physical meaning but also the philosophical proposition. For its understanding, let's first look at a child's explanation: This is a hand-painted creation from Xu Jia. In her writing, her daughter's understanding of this theme is innocent and cute, and the imagination is boundless, showing the infinite possibilities of this theme.


Illustration by Hsu Chia, please click for the full version.


Then come and enjoy the beautiful performances on the gorgeous rainbows.


21g--2018 Hangzhou Contemporary International Jewelry and Metal Art Triennial opening ceremony of the modern dance performance.


Why do you set up a rainbow in the exhibition hall?
Rainbow' is regarded as the intention of young artists to link the world. Artists all over the world meet here. Professor Zhenghong Wang, deputy dean of the School of Art and Craft, China Academy of Art and one of the curators of this exhibition, said: China Academy of Art is an academy which is always paying attention to the cultivation of young people in the future, so we leave the first exhibition hall to young people and leave them with love and sunshine.

In fact, the interesting idea comes from Suzhen Xie, co-curator of the exhibition. This "rainbow" is a bold attempt because it is a contemporary show, not just a jewelry show. So I put forward this plan boldly. 
Field observation: this rainbow is not the whole piece affixed to the ground, but a combination of one by one strips, it is reported that the material selection (must not damage the ground), concrete pasting and other processes take a lot of effort.
But during the production, almost all the participants were on 'micro' (Weibo, Chinese social media) and attracted a large number of viewers to take photos, so 'rainbow' actually played the Chinese concept of happy life in the theme of '21 grams', which is a concept facing towards goodness. 
In fact, Suzhen Xie was initially attracted by the theme of the exhibition: '21 grams' is a philosophical proposition, and the form of the crossover exhibition of design plus contemporary art and international tour exhibition is more attractive to me.
But then she would think: how do you get this philosophical ground? How can young people feel the power of contemporary art in such an elegant environment and thus become more dynamic? I want to use the characteristics of this era and the web celebrity phenomenon to achieve positive publicity for the exhibition and hope that the exhibition will be remembered.
This is a combination of the concept of contemporary art and the elegant taste of jewelry, combined with the unique topography of the folk art museum. Who said the school exhibition was for students only? I don't think so. An exhibition that expends so much energy should be seen and enjoyed by all the audience's, and we should do what this era should do.

During the early screening of works, the organizers received more than 700 works, more than 60% were from young artist's. This means that the amount of Chinese young artists is growing, as well as jewelry and metalworking, academic groups are showing rapid growth syncronising in this decade, these artists are after the 90's or after 00's, these young artists are paying attention to what? Mr. Wang said.


Exhibition opening.


Exhibition Opening.


Exhibition opening.


Exhibition opening.

"21 grams" has a complex hierarchy
The proposition of 21 grams as the creation and exhibition of jewelry and metal art is intended to call for people to go beyond floating life and livelong to perceive more profound human concern. To maintain the integrity of life, as pure as a lotus which opens themselves to the world with humility and simplicity. In today's society where profit-worship has become today's world. In this world, desire is floating, predation is strong. The public's aesthetic increasingly dominates the life. What behind the jewelry consumption and fashion guide is the obvious theme of 21 grams—— How to pay attention to people's mental outlook through jewelry and pay attention to settle the connotation of the mind. It also attracts the common concern of artists with all kinds of culture under the background.
Jiang Xu said, The president of China Academy of Fine Arts.

The theme of this exhibition is actually to address some of the problems that face Chinese jewelry art creation. Wu Zhou said, Dean of the School of Craft and Art, China Academy of arts. He wants to adopt such a theme and hopes to bring the creator back to the creation itself.

The content of this session is divided into two major parts and three exhibition areas: New Experiment + Classic Deep Cultivation + Art Review (Part 1). The contents of the three dimensions overlap and are interconnected. The second part of the theme is Bron, a review of forty-years of personal art creation by the curator, Ruudt Peters. At the same time, the form of the exhibition was also upgraded on the basis of the first session, including the content of cultural communication such as observation, seminars, lectures, and tour exhibitions.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Piece at the exhibition.


Piece at the exhibition.


Piece at the exhibition.


Why does the content have to be separated into three sections?
We hope to present different thinking about the same proposition at different ages. Such an exhibition is not only a platform for jewellery creators, but also a good platform for teaching research. Students can appreciate and draw on excellent works through such platforms and digest them in their own creations. Wu Zhou said.
In the eyes of Zhenyu Yang who is the director of the Graduate School of the China Academy of Art and the academic host of this exhibition, this proposition is just right. The art of jewellery has a long history. Today, almost everyone wears jewellery, but most of them simply equate it with decoration. The interesting part of this exhibition lies in the specific imagination of the '21 gram', which is a definite theme. Everyone has experienced jewelry in their lives. This is different from the circle of contemporary art. Jewelry is actually our most daily experience, and these experiences are unconscious. But this exhibition tells you: Why do we wear these jewelery? What kind of utopia is there in the bones? It may bring more thoughts.
An American scientist said that he found through experimentation that the weight of the body will be reduced by 21 grams at the time of death, and that 21 grams is the weight of the soul. Of course, this conclusion was later proved to be pseudoscience, but 21 grams was passed down as a symbolic figure and became a metaphor of ideology. So this 21g theme is not a concept in the physical sense, but a philosophical proposition. The exhibition also mentions the weight of the human spirit and the weight of the 21 grams.
At the same time, the exhibits are all themed creations, so the exhibits themselves are worth looking forward to. This restriction provides an infinite scope for the creation and presentation of exhibits. In addition to the theme of the unique and propositional creation of the new exhibits, the exhibition mode is also worth noting. When the weight of the exhibit is set to 21 grams, the volume is limited at the same time. In order to achieve the goal of being seen and integrating with space, the organizer creatively created an unprecedented exhibition scale to carry the exhibits while the bottom of the showcase was flush with the inclined booth. It has a unique charm, and it is more interesting because it is concealed within the theme. It also distinguishes different sections of space by different colors.
At the same time, this triennial will go to Germany, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands after the first stop on December 10th. The selection of these sites also has a focus and orientation, forming a visual landscape of a deep dialogue of jewelry art objects.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Today, jewellery art is no longer a simple body decoration or wearing art. Influenced by contemporary art trends, contemporary jewellery is multi-dimensional, some are side-by-side sculptures, some tend to experiment, others are associated with media or cross-media, so jewellery art is a very broad concept today. And this exhibition must have both cutting-edge exploration and the root of the jewellery, Wu Zhou said.
At the moment, the concept of contemporary jewelry art is very open. Chinese contemporary jewellery is also in the process of blending with Western contemporary jewellery art. In the process, we are slowly constructing our own value orientation. Therefore, in this sense, I hope that this triennial will play a certain role in promoting this.
The 21-gram theme was proposed by Professor Ruudt Peters, one of the curators and an internationally renowned art master. The weight of '21 grams' is a magical concept that combines imagination and physical reality. This idea inspired filmmakers, songwriters, great artists, novelists and documentary filmmakers, but there is no jewelry until today. Through this exhibition, I want to challenge the jewel creators who will create a new piece of art that matches the '21 gram' soul weight content, which translates the concept of the soul into a no more than '21 grams' of physical objects. This triennial, his curatorial philosophy is to 'show the soul's perspective in different societies.'


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


Exhibition venue.


The third section of the exhibition is showing 44-years of Ruudt Peter's art world. In this space, My dream of the universe is like an alien experience and atmosphere. Jewelry is a glass capsule arranged and grouped by theme. These are surrounded by blown glass and steel frames, and their functions are carried. Each capsule displays a piece of jewellery. 
In the exhibition space, film projections project sulphur, craters, geysers, smoke and bubbles on the ground, igniting a mysterious atmosphere. In this dream world, the jewelry in the glass capsule seems to be a floating asteroid, and all the senses of the tourists are stimulated. What is the world of this dream? How to design it? It remains to be further studied. In order to prevent small glass capsules from disappearing in the exhibition space, these capsules will be concentrated in several groups/areas due to the floor. The film projection on the top is more prominent. 
At the moment, people's focus on the art of jewellery has changed, from the emphasis on artistic to the focus on contemporary. The great thing about contemporary jewellery art is that it is on the street to the people, the wearer itself is its canvas, showing people how they like to spread the way of life. The viewer directly faces the individual: What is this? Why do we wear it? Jewelry is communication. To some extent, contemporary jewellery art is life and contains everything: gender, history, suffering, and love. Everything in life is related to jewelry, or everything in life is found in jewelry to some degree.


Please click to view the original article in Chinese.
The article is translated by Yao Yao, please email 834202615@qq.com for any question.