A Mind of Their Own: Jewellery from Austria. Focusing on Women Artists

When the United Nations general assembly in Vienna declared 1975 to be International Woman’s Year, there was already an avid, active scene of women artists who had chosen jewellery as their form of expression. However, in Austria, an examination into the role of women over the course of these developments has hitherto not yet been carried out, neither in relation to the makers of jewellery themselves nor in relation to the role of the female intermediaries.

The heyday of native avant-garde jewellery from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s was in large part initiated by women. From 1972 to 1988 Inge Asenbaum lay the decisive groundwork with her Galerie am Graben in Vienna. In Linz and Graz important initiatives came about through Elsa and Adolf Drobny as well as Werkstadt Graz. Verena Formanek and Veronika Schwarzinger fundamentally expanded the understanding of jewellery as art with their maker’s gallery V&V, founded in 1982. And in 1990 a further significant platform emerged with the founding of Galerie Renate Slavik.

This book therefore intends to refocus the attention. Its title references the exhibition Kunst mit Eigen-Sinn. Aktuelle Kunst von Frauen (Willful Art: Contemporary Art by Women), which in 1985 pursued a decidedly feminist approach at the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Vienna. Inspired by the show, this publication now places the women jewellery makers who crucially drove the discourse in the 1970s and 1980s centre stage.

The portrayal, which accompanies the exhibition of the same name at Museum Angerlehner in Thalheim bei Wels, is complemented by selected works by more recent generations. They not only reveal points of reference to avant-garde artists’ works but also document the development of a heterogeneous jewellery scene that is yet to be discovered in all its diversity.

Alongside numerous illustrations of choice works by 53 female, and male, artists -including wearable jewellery, objects, works about jewellery, installations, and photo and video works- essays by renowned women artists and authors introduce the Austrian art jewellery scene and locate it in art history from the 1970s on.