Monika Brugger: Heimat

Remarks

At the boundaries of jewellery -
The first survey of Monika Brugger’s work

“The salient feature of Monika Brugger’s work,” writes Pierre-Damien Huyghe, philosopher and art theorist, is not so much “a particular linkage of form and content as idea, category, linguistic tradition.” In this respect, he sees her work as belonging to the Conceptual tradition, which has hit her to been negligible in French art jewellery.

Monika Brugger in fact often does start working from fragments of personal memories. Her fragile, often anatomically inspired pieces in gold and silver are accompanied by photographs, texts, boxes or articles of clothing, which — with subtlety and irony — open up a polysemic stratigraphy of meaning while evoking recollected images. In this, Monika Brugger has crossed the boundaries of traditional art jewellery to approach installative processes of the kind familiar from sculpture.

In her handling of her material, Monika Brugger also pushes jewellery to its boundaries. She sabotages metal, for instance by perforating it almost to breaking point, fluctuating constantly between potential destruction and careful prevention of it. In her hands, what is opaque becomes transparent. Gold and silver often acquire textile qualities, which constitute formal links with the real textiles belonging to the jewellery. In her work, the boundaries between clothing and body are blurred.

HEIMAT, published by ARNOLDSCHE Art Publishers, represents the first sweeping survey of this unique position in European auteur jewellery. On 192 pages, Monika Brugger’s works from her beginnings in 1992 to the present are lavishly showcased in large illustrations and informative essays. For the first time, these unusual works, many of which are owned by major museums and private collections, are now accessible to a broader public.

A very special book on a unique stance in European auteur jewellery. A must for all aficionados of art jewellery! 

Texts by:
Christian Alandete, Fréderic Bodet, Caroline Broadhead, Christian Bontzolakis, Pierre-Damien Huyge, Francois Seigneur, Yves Sabourin, Georges Vigarello, Norman Weber.

 -2016-2016

An excerpt of  Pierre-Damien Huyghe text:

‘‘[…] The central feature of Monika Brugger’s work, to begin with, is not a particular connection between form and substance, but rather the idea, the category, the tradition of language. Her art is conceptual, in a certain sense. It involves an interrogation of the relationship between the agreed word and the thing made…’’ Pierre-Damien Huyghe. Monika Brugger represents a creative tradition of conceptual jewellery that is almost non-existent in France, and this book traces the development of her career since her first works. Fragments of anatomies, and of still-vivid memories, become leaves and polished mouldings, with gold and silver transmutating into tender, ironic jewels. Brugger is adept at using photography, texts, caskets and clothes to construct quirky ‘‘installations’’ that showcase her pieces in the amplitude and scale of the spaces used, which are themselves worthy of her sculpture. Her works have been acquired by museums and collectors, and this has brought her well-deserved critical recognition; which, added to her deep knowledge of jewellery and its history, both past and present, has made her a respected speaker on the subject, and one who is in demand both in France and around Europe.