Ute Eitzenhöfer: Schmuck Jewellery

The jewellery by Ute Eitzenhöfer is extravagant in many respects. It can be light, happy, pale, sensual and reassuring, but also heavy, dark, angry, provocative and brutal. Yet one thing is clear: despite their apparent superficiality, intrinsic beauty is a profound criterion.

Eitzenhöfer handles diverse materials with the precision of a goldsmith and with artistic largesse in equal measure: synthetic canisters, gold, pieces of wood, diamonds, precious stones and rocks. The work with gemstones in particular has, since her professorship at the University of Applied Sciences in Idar-Oberstein, a particular value in her oeuvre. For Eitzenhöfer it is not the superficial promise of happiness from the glitz and sparkle but rather the tempus fugit, the eternal in the stone in relation to human existence that is a central principle.

Despite exceptional autonomy in terms of object, her works are not conceived for the showcase, but as jewellery that is only complete when worn on the body. A prominent dialogue is what it is about: a critical yet opulent image of a world that is ultimate yet worthy of living in.

The perpetual development of content, which increasingly concentrates on motifs such as freedom, time, sensuality and value, is in this publication visible in Eitzenhöfer’s objects from the last ten years as well as in a selection from her earlier creative work.

This current publication is a varied showcase of an exceptional artist, who understands how to raise socially relevant issues on the medium of jewellery and to critically and pointedly question our relationship with value and resources.


Texts by Cornelie Holzach, Wilhelm Lindemann, Marjan Unger
Text in English and German
With photographs by Michael Müller