Attai Chen

Bio

Attai Chen (1979–2023) was an artist whose practice encompassed jewellery, sculptural relief, and a deep engagement with material experimentation. Born in Jerusalem, he studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design from 2002 to 2006, earning his B.F.A. from the Department of Jewelry, Accessories and Object. In 2006, he co-founded the Ziggurat Gallery for Contemporary Jewelry in Jerusalem, marking an early commitment to advancing contemporary jewellery as an artistic discipline. Chen continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, from 2007 to 2012 in the class of Prof. Otto Künzli. Named Meisterschüler in 2011, he completed his diploma the following year and went on to establish his own studio in Munich. There, he developed the distinctive artistic language for which he became internationally recognised—an exploration of opposites such as order and chaos, fragility and strength, matter and perception.

His works are held in major museum collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and Die Neue Sammlung – Design Museum (Munich). Chen received significant international distinctions early in his career, among them the Herbert Hofmann Prize (Schmuck, Munich, 2010), the Oberbayerischer Prize for Applied Art (2011), and the Andy Prize for Contemporary Art (2014), which led to a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In 2017, a brooch from his celebrated series A Matter of Perspective was presented at Schmuck 2017, further solidifying his position as a major voice in contemporary jewellery.

Statement

Fragile and at the same time ductile, perishable yet immortal, paper was the main medium used by Attai Chen in his artistic practice, which was based on a meticulous and tireless process of painting, cutting, assembling. An instinctive imaginative flow guided him in the creation of weightless, colorful, and dynamic high reliefs as well as micro wearable sculptural wonders, both pervaded by a sense of great exuberance yet dignified composure, and by a timeless poetic. In Attai’s hands, paper also became a means to symbolize the cyclicality of life and of creation: the birth, the growth, the progressive decay, the transformation, and finally, in germ, the starting point for a new beginning.

Attai Chen have always been intrigued by the endless repeating cycle that surrounds, whether in the natural or the manmade world; the motion of growth aiming for and reaching the fleeting moment of realization, the subsequent consummation of this moment, decay and a new beginning. In he work he wish to capture something from the aesthetic and essence of this condition to follow a process of unraveling growth to a fully evolved form, emerging from a rearrangement of discarded fragments. Attai Chen create work that has a somewhat modular and dynamic identity, the objects existing in a liminal context, leading to multiple possible reflections simultaneously.

/ Yinji Space