Silver Triennial International. 20th Worldwide Competition

The focus is not only on technical and artistic aspects; a large number of the entries also have a socio-critical and contemporary historical background.

An expert jury was again assembled this year: Dirk Allgaier, head of Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart; Dr Claudia Banz, curator for design at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin; and JaKyung Shin, silversmith and assistant professor at Seoul National University, Korea, selected 67 impressive silver works.

With a contribution by Francesco Colli and a foreword by Hartwig Rohde and Christianne Weber-Stöber.

With the 20th Silver Triennial International, the Association for Goldsmiths’ Art, as its organizer, renders an important contribution to the promotion of handcraftsmanship in silver. 121 artists from 21 countries took part in the competition: besides numerous submissions from Europe, we also received works in silver from Asia, Australia, Canada, Ecuador, and the United States. The first round of evaluation took place on the basis of digitally sub-mitted photos, the expert jury—Dirk Allgaier, Dr Claudia Banz, and JaKyung Shin—selected the works for the exhibition. During the second jury session, the originals were visually examined and the winners of the main contest and youth promotion contest were ascertained. Our sincere thanks are owed to the jury, at this point, for its great dedication. 

Supporting and reframing artisanal silversmithing has always been a matter of particular concern to the Association for Goldsmiths’ Art: the foundation stone of today’s Silver Triennial was laid in 1965. Since 1968, it has been possible to hold this contest as a partnership project with the city of Hanau. Thanks to the financial participation of the city and many other supporters, the results of the competition can be recorded in a publication and presented in a museum context. For many years, the exhibition has been launched at the German Goldsmiths’ House in Hanau before subsequently calling in at other museums.

From the very beginning, the Silver Triennials reflected a variety of positions. Within the context of the exhibitions, the significance of the crafts and the one-off object as compared to mass production were discussed as well as the importance of the ornamental versus purist concepts of form-giving. In addition, the strong focus on silver from the perspective of gold- and silver-smiths was justified by pointing to the supremacy of their craft, a point that had been questioned repeatedly but ultimately had been expanded every time.

The Silver Triennial underwent a major change in 1992, with its expansion into an international competition.