ArtWear Contemporary Jewelry NL
Book
/
Catalogues
Exhibiting
Published: 31.08.2020
- Text by:
- Anne Berk, Liesbeth den Besten
- Edited at:
- Haarlem
- Edited on:
- 2020
- Technical data:
- A4, 64 pages.
- ISBN / ISSN:
- 978-90-9033443-1
- Price:
- from 15 €
- Order:
- ArtWear
A catalogue features the exhibition ArtWear at De Vishal, Haarlem in 2020 which is a comprehensive presentation of Dutch jewellery maker/designers. The selected artists display an extremely varied image of the present developments in the field of contemporary jewellery. They are chosen for their diverse use of materials, for combining conceptual ideas with craft techniques.
Each participating jewellery artists explains about the work on display in the book.
About the publication:
Photography: Fjodor Buis.
Text: Anne Berk, Liesbeth den Besten.
Preface: Sylvia Blickman, Margriet Blom.
Text part from the article Artwear - Jewelry Searching For Wearers：
An exhibition titled ArtWear raises some questions, because what is artwear? The title is a nonexistent word, a contraction of art and wearing, possibly translatable as wearable art or art of wearing.
Such an ambivalent title doesn't simply drop out of the sky, and it refers to the ambiguity of a relatively new phenomenon within art and design usually signified with expressions such as contemporary jewelry, art jewelry, and auther jewelry. More frequently it is described in terms of what it is not: it isn't art, design, or precious metalsmithing. But what then is it? In any case it is inter-categorical and undetermined, but something that stands alone as an academic program at art academies, as an artistic practice, as a field with galleries and collectors and with a history going back a good 50 years. As a new variant to existing craft branches it is a product of 20th century postwar Modernism with its innovations and advancements. Contemporary jewelry is created, conceived, and designed by artists or designers unwilling to simply repeat the type of work already in existence. And that spawns a difficult phenomenon.
The jewelry field in general namely, is pre-eminently conservative and based on cherished habits and traditions. It is difficult to introduce or to implement change in this domain. Human beings prefer remaining with what they already know or with following fashion trends. These things represent comfortable familiarity, and the concept of value has already been determined. Contradictorily, a contemporary jewelry designer - or artist develops concepts, forms, and values that tend to intrude upon all of the generally accepted notions about jewelry. It is in the breaking open of familiar paradigms in which an entirely new species of jewelry originates, one that breaks away from the usual typologies (pearl necklace, solitaire ring, 'slave bangle' 1,
ear studs etc.) and claiming for itself the largest possible range of material use and techniques.
And that does cause a lot of eyebrows to raise.
Everybody knows what a jewel is and has their own notions about it, yet contemporary jewelry artists do things in a different way, putting both the viewer and wearer to the test. Jewelry made from plastics with the use of packaging material that served its purpose as molds (Andrea Wagner), a necklace with anodized aluminum forms derived from beachcombing and sea finds (Sylvia Blickman), wearable compositions of balsa wood and paint, embroidered with gold thread (Beppe Kessler), delicately moving marionettes of sea creatures (Koen Jacobs), a necklace with little red felt hearts (Birgit Daamen), a large glazed ceramic circle as neck jewel (Judith Bloedjes), or a large perforated plexiglass disk as neck collar (Paul Derrez) - the variety of contemporary jewelry in form, material and technique is enormous. It seems everything is possible and nothing mandatory, but that isn't quite the whole story yet. That's because in order to find an audience or a buyer, a piece of jewelry still needs to fulfill certain tacit requirements. It has to be wearable
(a fluid concept), attractive, playful, discernible, as well as customizable. All these characteristics could be summed up in the term 'jewelry-ness'.
/ Liesbeth den Besten, 02 Jul 2020
About the publication:
Photography: Fjodor Buis.
Text: Anne Berk, Liesbeth den Besten.
Preface: Sylvia Blickman, Margriet Blom.
Text part from the article Artwear - Jewelry Searching For Wearers：
An exhibition titled ArtWear raises some questions, because what is artwear? The title is a nonexistent word, a contraction of art and wearing, possibly translatable as wearable art or art of wearing.
Such an ambivalent title doesn't simply drop out of the sky, and it refers to the ambiguity of a relatively new phenomenon within art and design usually signified with expressions such as contemporary jewelry, art jewelry, and auther jewelry. More frequently it is described in terms of what it is not: it isn't art, design, or precious metalsmithing. But what then is it? In any case it is inter-categorical and undetermined, but something that stands alone as an academic program at art academies, as an artistic practice, as a field with galleries and collectors and with a history going back a good 50 years. As a new variant to existing craft branches it is a product of 20th century postwar Modernism with its innovations and advancements. Contemporary jewelry is created, conceived, and designed by artists or designers unwilling to simply repeat the type of work already in existence. And that spawns a difficult phenomenon.
The jewelry field in general namely, is pre-eminently conservative and based on cherished habits and traditions. It is difficult to introduce or to implement change in this domain. Human beings prefer remaining with what they already know or with following fashion trends. These things represent comfortable familiarity, and the concept of value has already been determined. Contradictorily, a contemporary jewelry designer - or artist develops concepts, forms, and values that tend to intrude upon all of the generally accepted notions about jewelry. It is in the breaking open of familiar paradigms in which an entirely new species of jewelry originates, one that breaks away from the usual typologies (pearl necklace, solitaire ring, 'slave bangle' 1,
ear studs etc.) and claiming for itself the largest possible range of material use and techniques.
And that does cause a lot of eyebrows to raise.
Everybody knows what a jewel is and has their own notions about it, yet contemporary jewelry artists do things in a different way, putting both the viewer and wearer to the test. Jewelry made from plastics with the use of packaging material that served its purpose as molds (Andrea Wagner), a necklace with anodized aluminum forms derived from beachcombing and sea finds (Sylvia Blickman), wearable compositions of balsa wood and paint, embroidered with gold thread (Beppe Kessler), delicately moving marionettes of sea creatures (Koen Jacobs), a necklace with little red felt hearts (Birgit Daamen), a large glazed ceramic circle as neck jewel (Judith Bloedjes), or a large perforated plexiglass disk as neck collar (Paul Derrez) - the variety of contemporary jewelry in form, material and technique is enormous. It seems everything is possible and nothing mandatory, but that isn't quite the whole story yet. That's because in order to find an audience or a buyer, a piece of jewelry still needs to fulfill certain tacit requirements. It has to be wearable
(a fluid concept), attractive, playful, discernible, as well as customizable. All these characteristics could be summed up in the term 'jewelry-ness'.
/ Liesbeth den Besten, 02 Jul 2020
- Text by:
- Anne Berk, Liesbeth den Besten
- Edited at:
- Haarlem
- Edited on:
- 2020
- Technical data:
- A4, 64 pages.
- ISBN / ISSN:
- 978-90-9033443-1
- Price:
- from 15 €
- Order:
- ArtWear
-
Artist in Residence Collection 2015-2023
-
Tools for Conviviality. An Exhibition Catalogue of Cheongju Craft Biennale 2021
-
A Tale of Multiple Worlds. Synthesis Possibilities on Colours and Preciousness. An Exhibition Catalogue
-
Martin Kargruber: From the Inside Out. Sculptures in Wood 2014-2024
-
J 01 Tereza Seabra
-
Elisa Helland-Hansen. Pleasure and Use
-
15th Westerwald Prize 2024
-
Attai Chen. All the World’s a Stage
-
Masterworks from the 80s & 90s. A Curated Selection by Hannah Gallery from María Luisa Samaranch's Private Collection
-
Bizarre Beauty. The Art of William Harper
-
Gabi Dziuba & Friends
-
Elisabeth Holder. From Jewellery to Contextual Art
-
Elisabeth Von Krogh. Retrospective / Prospective: Ceramics 1972–2024
-
New Earrings: 400+ Designs in Contemporary Jewellery
-
Magnificence of Rococo. Kaendler's Meissen Porcelain Figures
