Giampaolo Babetto: L'Italianità dei Gioielli

Giampaolo Babetto (born 1947 in Padua) has influenced the international avant-garde goldsmithing scene since the late 1960s. As one of the protagonists of the so-called “Padua School” he significantly influenced Italian auteur jewellery. Babetto’s works are decidedly contemporary, artful and radical in the reduction of forms—and deeply rooted in the Italian culture. Babetto’s work reflects contemporary art movements such as concrete art, minimal art, and kinetic or op art in a unique, purist and plastic manner. Made up of different abstract elements, broken down into modular units, or rendered moveable through the use of ingenious links, Babetto’s works have a tectonic and sculptural character.

Due to its stable malleability and its warm sheen Babetto prefers to work in gold. He combines it with unconventional materials such as plastic or glass, dusting the surface with a velvet-like pigment in luminous reds or blues, or using enamel and age-old niello-based techniques. He has already been classified a mixed media artist, working not only with jewellery but also silver objects, furniture design and architectural projects. His oeuvre reflects the uncompromising demands he places on his own handling of the various artistic disciplines, combined with a systematic approach and love of experimentation.

With photographs by Ulrike Myrzik and Manfred Jarisch and a text by Ellen Maurer Zilioli.