MJW21 Edition - Current Obsession Paper

CURRENT OBSESSION

PAPER

CURRENT OBSESSION — MUNICH JEWELLERY WEEK 2021

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MJW PAPER

2021

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CONTENT

A Post-Digital Prophecy: Virtual Space and Jewellery

p.6

Essay by Kellie Riggs

In Munich p.10

By Nina Moog

Joohee Han p.12 Interview

Exhibition MUC/Schmuck p.16 Interview

Gerd Rothmann p.20 Essay

Jasmin Matzakow p.26 Interview

ADVERTORIAL

Poetic Ceramics p.30 Exhibition at CODA Museum Apeldoorn

ADVERTORIAL

Cold Sweat p.34 1st Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial

EDITOR IN CHIEF & CREATIVE DIRECTOR

MJW COVER ARTWORK

SUPPORTED BY

Dkhar, Finchittida Finch, Fiona Williams, Gabriel

Marina Elenskaya

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CRUCIBLE COVER ARTWORK

PARTNERS

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MANAGING DIRECTOR

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OHMYBLUE, New York City Jewelry Week,

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CODA Museum Apeldoorn, PIN, Norwegian Crafts,

Julius, Kalkidan Hoex, Laura Elsener, Leah Adamson,

info@current-obsession.com

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Sarah Mesritz magazine@current-obsession.com

CO CONTENT COVER ARTWORK

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Foundation

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MJW WEBSITE

SPECIAL THANKS

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Family and friends, Chris van der Kaap, Ismail Ahmic,

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ART DIRECTOR & GRAPHIC DESIGNER Linda Beumer

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TALENT DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Frank Verkade

PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

Benedikt Fischer, Stefan Auberg, Martijn van

Tzu-yun hung, Whiskey Chow, Xinia Guan, Xu Qin,

Rodi Rotatiedruk

Ooststroom, Darja Popolitova, Steven KP, Jonathan

Zakiyaa Syrus

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

McCarthy, Mickey the dog, Kirsten T. Monroe,

Kellie Riggs

PUBLISHED BY CURRENT OBSESSION

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EDITORS

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EDITORIAL INTERNSHIP

Roxanne Simone

Finchittida Finch

Maria Geuke

COPYRIGHT

No part of this publication may be copied and/or

Special thanks to all the applicants and artists who

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

reproduced without the written permission of the

shared the open call or passed on to a friend,

INTERVIEWS

Nina Moog

copyright holder

Thank You for making Crucible International!

Kassandra Lauren Gordon & Roxanne Simone

Kellie Riggs

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MJW PRESS

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ESSAY

Lee, Dominique Renee, Ebba Hägne, Emily Beckley,

Whiskey Chow

Elvis Wesley

Emily Moore. Eulalee Mair, Eve Lam, Farvash, Fileona

In Memory of Lucy Sarneel

Image and quote courtesy of CODA Museum Apeldoorn

4 March 1961 — 28 December 2020

‘The jewel is a soul mate. A soul mate communicates without words and that also applies to my jewellery and the visual language I use. It is a visual and intuitive language that I try to communicate with in a way that is not necessarily rational.

The jewellery has its own existence and invites reflection and communication while it also offers the possibility to be worn.

My jewellery is “slow art in a fast world”. It requires attention and concentration, but connects spectator and wearer in conversation. The interpretation of the content, the material and the form determine the values we ​​ assign to it and how we use it. A piece of jewellery, with its relatively small sphere of influence, finds itself in the big world. By displaying and wearing the piece of jewellery, the private is lifted while at the same time being sharpened.’

‘Het sieraad is een soulmate. Een soulmate communiceert zonder woorden en dat geldt ook voor mijn sieraden en de beeldtaal waarvan ik me bedien. Het is een visuele en intuïtieve taal waarmee ik probeer te communiceren op een manier die niet per se rationeel is. Het sieraad heeft een eigen bestaan en nodigt uit tot reflectie en communicatie terwijl het daarnaast ook de mogelijkheid biedt gedragen te worden. Mijn sieraden zijn ‘slow art in a fast world’. Het vraagt om aandacht en concentratie, maar verbindt beschouwer en drager in gesprek. De interpretatie van de inhoud, het materiaal en de vorm bepalen de waarden die we eraan toekennen en hoe we het gebruiken. Een sieraad, met zijn relatief kleine invloedssfeer, bevindt zich altijd in de grote wereld. Door het sieraad te tonen en te dragen wordt het private opgeheven terwijl het tegelijkertijd verscherpt wordt.

— Lucy Sarneel

2021

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EDITOR'S NOTE

EDITOR’S NOTE DEAR READER, As you have opened the deliciously crinkly package of this Current Obsession Paper x Munich Jewellery Week 2021 and glanced over the myriads of wonderfully bright images that make it up, you’ve probably noticed that for the cover of this section we have chosen the 1979 image of a piece Corner of the Mouth, Moulded on my Mouth, by the legendary Gerd Rothmann.

The choice was very specific because we feel that this piece gains several new meanings in the light of today’s movement for social change and the ravaging health crisis.

Rothmann’s ideas about how nothing can speak louder about one’s identity than casts of their own skin reverberate in the world where omnipresent face masks conceal our features. This epochal piece talks about preserving our individualities in the face of unpredictably changing world.

Its sealed lips and the reflective expression could also be interpreted as a gentle reminder of how important it is to listen and think, rather than speak and react. *Also, Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry – we love you, but eat your heart out!

Like in past issues of the Paper, CO has always commissioned relevant think pieces and articles.

This issue is no exception: Curator, writer and CO’s long term collaborator Kellie Riggs presents a text about the Post-Digital, reflecting on how the pandemic accelerated the normalisation of virtual representations of jewellery. Questions raised include: how is form-giving shifting from the material to content? And are digital viewing spaces actually a hopeful opportunity for jewellers?

In-person conversations with Munich-based artists Joohee Han, Jasmin Matzakow and yes, Gerd Rothman, were developed in collaboration with local writer and director of photography, Nina Moog. She also spoke to the curators of the MUC/Schmuck exhibition at Münchner Statdmuseum, Antonia Voit and Professor Karen Pontoppidan, about their joint project.

Current Obsession Paper x Munich Jewellery Week 2021 remains a true testament documenting the condition and the response of the Contemporary Jewellery global community to the current coronavirus crisis, its multitude of creative and powerful reflections find joy in jewellery and adornment as key cultural, social and individual signifiers telling a bigger story of humanity.

Love, always, CO Team — Marina, Sarah, Linda, Frank, Kellie, Rebecca, Maria, Sonia

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MJW PAPER

Essay By Kellie Riggs

A Post-Digital Prophecy: Virtual Space and Jewellery

In 1968, theorist and art critic Jack Burnham published ‘System Esthetics’ — a text that ultimately prophesized the art world’s move away from ‘objecthood’, a result of the natural, evolving symbiosis between humans and computer technology. He said: ‘We are now in transition from an object-oriented to a systems-oriented culture. Here change emanates, not from things, but from the way things are done.’1 One could suggest that today’s Post-Digital era gives name to precisely what he aimed to describe; that is, as I would define it, the fluid synchronicity of physical and virtual space.

New to the term? Though the effects of the ‘Post-Digital’ are largely left out of contemporary craft or jewellery discourse, you can find solace in the fact that you are already, perhaps unbeknownst to yourself, fully living within this realm, exponentially so right now. Some might actually view this physical publication as an antidote to the Post-Digital, but as a matter of fact, it is simultaneously a consequence of it as well. If that sounds confusing, think less postmodernism and more post-punk (still having the essence of punk ‘yet also beyond punk’), or even post-colonial (which in no way signifies that colonialism is over), and then apply that logic to the concept of something ‘digital’ — a word which now means many things, with definitions that can seem contradictory.2 For the sake of ease, go with whatever your immediate connotations of the word end up being, and then remember that we are living within a time where all digital disruptions have most likely come to pass.

Jewellery practice is no exception to these reverberations. The world now is hyper-connective, open source and user-generated. This includes the new ways of making, seeing, and interfacing with Contemporary Jewellery, which has only accelerated within the course of the last twelve months (thank you, Corona). This piece is a snapshot of our current moment in time, where form has become content, jewellery has a bigger place within the economy of images, and burgeoning virtual exhibition formats might be the next big thing for the field, global pandemic or not.

Burnham’s prediction resonates now more than ever.

Whether in embrace or trepidation of technology, today’s connectivity informs new meanings around our relationship to objects, and also informs what they are allowed to become.

Looked at from a certain vantage point, we are entering an era that returns to the object, though in a way, more intangibly: craft is becoming 21st century content.

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Still from Popolitova's letter intro for her series Save As... made for the online exhibition, Digitally Yours.

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hen is an Instagram post more than an Instagram post?

W As with most other Millennials, Estonian jewellery artist Darja Popolitova is a Digital Native, who grew up with the inherent infrastructure of the internet. For this generation, it is easy to take for granted the ways 3D objects are largely seen and experienced today: on devices, where newer, hybridized craft practices like hers thrive. They exist as the primary place of encounter for her work. This is exemplified by her Instagram account. Of significance are: a mix of the artist’s amorphous, alien-esque jewellery pieces a) either on a white background, the standard ‘professional’ convention; b) installed in an exhibition setting; c) featured as a still from one of her video pieces; d) as a digital process shot before its material manifestation takes place; e) in her hand or on her body, most likely in the form a selfie; f) or some combination of it all. In the last few scenarios, the background of the photos are often digitally doctored. She also sometimes presents herself in wigs, iridescent makeup and/or with face filters alluding to some kind of virtual alter-ego. With titles like Narcissus, Anti Clicking Spike and Digital Detox Brush, she is making work that ‘addresses the digital condition… a condition of artworks and objects that are conceptually and practically shaped by the internet and digital processes, yet often manifest in the material form.3 Though the physical jewellery objects are the crux of what Popolitova creates, they are also just a part of

the total picture, or the collective persona she presents when she shares that jewellery online. The combination of physical and digital adornment - which the processes of creating are increasingly less distinguishable. - plus the generation of intriguing accompanying texts (otherwise known as captions, though I think hers are more than that), is what formalizes and gives space to the physical objects that emerge from her studio. The totality of her output, that which we find on Instagram, is more than content. As a whole, a certain post becomes something singular, more than the sum of its parts: each output is a Digital Gesamtkunstwerk, or ‘total work of art’.

The information and experiences that make up her particular content is imperative to the reading of the physical pieces of which they play a part. There are others like her: Simon Margsiglia, Ada Chen, and Kalkidan Hoex come to mind; where the framework of their pieces is the makers’ projected identity through the digital image.

Contemporary Jewellery is only now beginning to blossom in this space and play with self-insertion into pop culture and today’s image economy. It’s an interesting discourse that allows us to evaluate object meta-versioning, and question shifting value of physical objects when compaired to their online iterations.

The internet is filled indiscriminately with images; from high-resolution photos to ‘poor images’ — ‘an illicit

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ESSAY

Darja Popolitova Still from iTouch Store, 2019, a video series which shows tactile interactions with the jewellery while referring to commodification culture, more specifically to online shopping.

Piece depicted is Digital Detox Brush. Still found on her instagram, @darja_popolitova

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fifth-generation bastard of an original image’, as artist and filmmaker Hito Steyerl calls them.4 Combine that with the advent of social media and the birth of the ‘me me me’ generation post-Y2K, and it is no wonder that the work of Popolitova exists today, that digital narcissism is a trait of Gen Y and those that follow. Today’s Post-Digital Era is built on extreme reference culture accelerated by an infinite remix of images of things based on preexisting images of things. They find new meaning, and arguably become singular things in and of themselves. Memes are a succinct example of this experiential process; some of which could even be considered as virtual found objects.

As more of our physical reality syncs up with our screens, will our value system for physical objects change? Will we want more IRL time with them, or less? Will our appreciation for tactile materiality go up or down? And what will that mean in the post-pandemic era, which is now being defined by a reality almost entirely devoid of physicality, only linked to our screens? Does it even matter?

There is something fascinating about ‘an object slipping into a meta-state as its primary state… only validated by its meta-version,’ as design historian Glenn Adamson puts it: ‘is it going to be the photograph of the thing that is the actual thing?’.5 He ponders the idea of ‘intellectual property as the core unit of exchange rather than the object – it’s basically where creativity and capital overlap in the purest form, so that makes you think that were entering a circulatory system where content and form may themselves be colliding.’ In the case of the Digital Gesamtkunstwerk, this is all absolutely true. These thoughts call to question the idea of authenticity of object or space and shifting notions of aura.

At the risk of using an old cliché, Walter Benjamin said that ‘the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.’ But what about in cyberspace?

When considering the object as just one element of Digital Gesamtkunstwerk, or even simply depicted on a white background and found online, can that theory still be

‘There is something fascinating about 'an object slipping into a meta-state as its primary state... only validated by its meta-version.’ applied? Is it a moot point? A timelier lens through which to see and understand evolving spaces for jewellery is the condition of ‘technophoria… a new metabolic state devised by late capitalism whereby human needs and desires are purely satiated by the continual evolution of their electronic devices.’ This statement comes from curator, writer and cultural historian Dr. Omar Kholeif, who rightfully points out John Berger’s extensions of Benjamin’s theory (will we ever be done with these guys?) in regards to the influences of pop culture and marketing on image (re)production: ‘the intent of the subject—to be idolized, to be envied—as integral to a work of art as the intent of the artist.’7 In short, Instagram is fulfilling Berger’s prophecy to the Nth degree.

Kholeif says we have now evolved into a state where we ‘no longer just examine an image, we metabolize it…’; stating that the ‘agency’ of aura must be reexamined, because ‘the traditional notions of art — its spatiality, its

1 Jack Burnham, “System Esthetics”, Artforum, VOL. 7, NO. 1 (September 1968), 31.

3 Christiane Paul, “Museums in the Post-Digital Past and Future: Materials, Mediation, Models” in Museums at the Post-Digital Turn, Milan: Moussee Publishing, 2019, 143.

I first came to this subject of the Post-Digital within the realm of jewellery as it relates to how this new ‘output’ can and should be considered by curatorial minds, parti­ cularly museum curators. My interest was more about the outcome versus the equally interesting Post-Digital making practices that go into a physical object’s creation, such as using 3D technologies in lieu of more traditional approaches (so many good artists explore in this regard, like Annika Pettersson or Adam Grinovich). The museum has been known to be the primary place of artistic validation, reaffirmation, and archive, yet as they scramble to optimize virtual viewing experiences for the objects in their care (which of course has been thrust upon them by the pandemic), we can look to artists for some of the best examples of online-only exhibition based frameworks, spaces that acknowledge and celebrate the Post-Digital experiences of which we are exploring. Certain projects also reaffirm the endlessly adaptable creativity of

4 Hito Steyerl, “In Defense of the Poor Image”, e-flux, Journal #10, November 2009,

2 Florian Cramer, “What is ‘Post-Digital’?, in Postdigital Aesthetics- Art, Computation and Design, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 14-15.

tactileness, its dimensionality, its authenticity — are no longer the dominating attributes in how we look at visual work.’8 This is true even for jewellery, which more than other kinds of art and design objects relies on materiality and tactility to be appreciated. For the most part, actors in the field have traditionally maintained the position that aura is truly struck in the moment that a person feels compelled to put on piece of jewellery, to be one with it, but is that really the case anymore? Perhaps jewellery’s new authentic space is actually the internet where new aristic work now comes in multiple digital iterations.

Who, therefore, is to say which version of Popolitova’s jewels, for example, is more authentic than another?

When a piece’s hyperrealness looks better zoomed in and gleaming from the screen of a smartphone than it might in physical reality, is that its aura radiating before our eyes?

I would argue that phone viewing actually benefits certain pieces of jewellery from being seen that way, especially in comparison to an encounter behind a plexi vitrine.

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/ 5

Glenn Adamson, in-person interview, December 11, 2019.

6 Omar Kholeif, Goodbye, World! Looking at Art in the Digital Age, Sternberg Press: Berlin, 2018, 89.

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Kholeif, Goodbye, World!, 101-102.

Renditions of a physical piece by Hannah Blitz Heyman, found in the Digitally Yours exhibition. Her work is a classic example of Post-Digital Practice, ‘a blur – and that’s exactly what it needs to be. Heyman’s work straddles multiple existences – of pure digital pixel, of wearable physical object, and of the strange expanse of hybridity in-between.

But the work exists as each of these things, confidentially at once. Heyman’s chains and warped images reject any conventional hierarchy and stand as equals in a world just as distorted, just as confused, just as confident as the pieces themselves.’ Quote from exhibition website. www.digitallyyoursexhibition.com/artists/

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Ada Chen, Chinese Zodiac Meme Charms, 2020 Photo by Jonell Joshua (@jonell.Joshua), found on her Instagram account, @potadachen

‘To me it is clear that Contemporary Jewellers have long been talented form givers beyond the making of their individual jewellery pieces.’

ESSAY

a customizable menu where the participant is able to recall a specific memory of their choosing, then manifest and memorialize it into an automated but unique piece of jewellery that can be ordered, or discarded. The inter­ active works by Brice Garret also deserve a mention: a user can access a webpage where through the click and drag of the mouse, silhouetted forms derived from jewels found online can be rearranged to the user’s liking.

Even though this show was born from the call of the pandemic to harness new modes of meaningful connection, KP says the project in general ‘really got me thinking about how we cultivate relationships, and how even if the digital isn’t the material you’re working in, it is the setting that we are all occupying. It’s more than making sure you’re seen.’12

So what’s the difference between something posted and something published, or exhibited? I actually do not think these kind of distinctions matter so much, or render certain output more or less interesting. But the curators seemed well aware of such nuance, and consequently took care to give singular form to this project through the letter-writing component of the show. At the start of each artist’s page, there is a text-based audio/video of each artist reading a letter that welcomes and introduces their contributions, beautifully facilitating a private moment between artist and viewer. It’s something one rarely gets at a physical exhibition opening, not to mention recalls the nostalgia for early internet chat rooms, one of the defining freedoms of the digital revolution.

One might ask if the projects made for Digitally Yours, and the exhibition as a singular entity for that matter, is art or mere documentation. I don’t think it matters. There is one more notable benefit to such virtual projects, other than calling on object makers to optimize their creations for a more complex and future looking level of engagement: they create time capsules, sure, but more importantly, they are important archives for the field of Contemporary Jewellery made in real-time, an opportunity still too far beyond the periphery of museums. It is my long held belief that exhibitions are the field’s primary (albeit inadvertent) tool for generating scholarship and a critical theory of the field itself, and projects like Digitally Yours are a genre-defining example.

Screenshots of Leslie Shershow’s project for Digitally Yours, Jewelry Generator, 2020-2021

jewellers, who have long been successful multi-hyphenates: photographers, graphic designers, small business owners, social media managers, and of course, curators.

Recently I spoke with Steven (KP) Kaplan-Pistiner, art jeweller and co-curator (alongside Jessica Andersen) of the online exhibition Digitally Yours made specifically for the virtual rendition of New York City Jewelry Week 2020.

Initially I was surprised to see this project come from two very materially driven artists. KP hand-carves knotted brooches from wood, and Jessica remains invested in the lives of material things and reclamation; they both share love for the ‘vibrancy of material, actually holding it and feeling it, wearing it.’9 At the same time though, the duo acknowledged that this wasn’t going to be an option all the time, especially in the face of the pandemic. They wanted to showcase artists tackling ideas of connection, isolation and intimacy that would suit a virtual and interactive environ­ment –one that explores ‘the relationship between digital realms, image, communication, participation, and jewellery.’10 Popolitova was the first to be named during our chat, her open source project of downloadable files (called Save As) being a pristine display of both the freedom and flexibility of system-based internet activity, and a level of personalization so closely tied to the medium of jewellery. ‘We have things in our exhibition that do not exist anymore because those files are ever changing, which I think is really interesting in the context of jewellery as a project, but also as a thing to preserve in museums.

Every time someone prints or loads up one of her files, they alter. It's a really beautiful way of making sure that each time the screen is loaded, it’s a really valuable and impactful moment.’11 Leslie Shershow’s Jewellery Generator is even more poignant. On the Digitally Yours site, one is led to

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To me it is clear that Contemporary Jewellers have long been talented form givers beyond the making of their individual jewellery pieces. Whether it is through an artist run exhibition, or via the creation of virtual framework adapted for online only viewing, more and more they are the masters of their entire domain. Media theorist Boris Gorys discusses it best: form givers are becoming content­ providers, meanwhile curators are the new, traditional form givers, tasked with achieving singular form through curatorial projects both online and off.5 Some are better at it than others, but jewellers do both, and I believe are surprising protagonists of Post-Digital attitudes.

If there’s one take away to this text, maybe it is simply that jewellers are more than capable of participating in the Post-Digital conversation, a topic I’ve been researching long before the pandemic showed its face (mask, please!).

Perhaps it pushed our field into that direction a bit more abruptly than if we had set the pace ourselves, but we are more than rising to the occasion: as a compliment to physical viewing opportunities, never a substitute, Contemporary Jewellery is an inherently Post-Digital medium, primed for the hybrid virtual stage.

Darja Popolitova, top: —.OO)):po20Y, 2020, bottom: @oo&17kü From the series ‘Save As…’ these rings started as 3D files that the artist distorted and warped containing ‘a million different cursor clicks.’

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This text is an extremely reduced adaptation of Kellie’s 2020 MA thesis entitled, ’A Remarkable Lacuna: The Post-Digital Gap In Museum Curating For Contemporary Jewelry.‘ Kellie Riggs (b.1986, USA) is a writer, critic and curator with a focus on Contemporary Jewelry, and sometimes jeweller. She received her BFA in Jewelry + Metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, and upon graduating received a Fulbright Grant to Italy, where she has remained on and off ever since. She has been an external editor at, Current Obsession, with whom she also cocurated the exhibition CULT at the Design Museum den Bosch in 2016.

Kellie experienced her solo-curatorial debut with the exhibition, Non-Stick Nostalgia: Y2K Retrofuturism in Contemporary Jewelry at the Museum of Arts and Design in Spring 2019. In May 2020 she also earned a Masters in Visual Art Administration at New York University.

8

Ibid., 173-174.

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Kaplan-Pristiner, interview.

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Steven Kaplan-Pristiner, Zoom interview,

12

Ibid.

February 19, 2021.

13 Groys, “From the Form-Giver to the Content-Provider”, 38-46.

10 Steven Kaplan-Pristiner and Jessica Andersen, https://digitallyyoursexhibition.com/about/

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MJW PAPER

IN MUNICH

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The firm grip of winter is loosening in Munich. Outside,

gathered the stinging nettles to make the necklaces

the last remnants of snow are being blazed away by the

which form part of her series ‘Ecotechnomagic’ In

sun. I just spotted my neighbour, an incredibly grumpy

a street outside central Munich, I descended into

man with a succulent moustache, ‘tanning’ in a faded

JOOHEE HAN’S underground studio space to marvel

spot of light on his balcony.Despite such spectacles of

at her collection of eggshells from which she makes

bare stomached ecstasy, my favourite places in the city

the works in her ‘Oval’ series. I visited GERD

remain closed. Munich's galleries, cinemas, restaurants

ROTHMANN’S atelier and home, where our conver­

and museums - like the Münchner Statdmuseum -

sation meandered much in the way I had been wander-

haven't reopened, and only time will tell when they will.

ing around his neighbourhood. I was able to enjoy what

Numbed from its familiar pace, dulled morning traffic

many will miss with Schmuck’s cancellation: a dialogue

has granted my neighbourhood an odd sense of stillness.

with jewellers as well as with the streets of Munich.

My free time these past few months was spent largely on foot. I walked along the Isar River, through the

As we wait for our desires for human contact to

English Garden, trekked across quiet areas of the city.

be met without any bad feeling, I’m finding solace in

I walked in circles and zig-zags. I paced in and out of my

the joys of the tactile. On my walks, I make an extra

apartment. In my bubble, walking has replaced every

effort to trail a hand along a wall, crumble some gravel

other activity. Yesterday, a friend of mine remarked to

over ice. During a winter where we aren’t supposed

me that if she goes on one more walk, her legs may

to be touching each other within a field where touch

just fall off and abandon her body.

holds such importance, at least we can run our hands along the edges of these pages. When I met Jasmin, she

During the collection of these written pieces, I was

reminded me that Schmuck isn’t cancelled forever. At

presented with new routes to take. In Maxvorstadt,

some point, it will return to Munich, and bring with it

I visited JASMIN MATZAKOW’S friendly, book-filled

new things to see and ways to go.

studio in the Akademie der Bildende Künste. From her window, I could peek into the garden where she

NINA MOOG

Nina Moog is a writer and director of photography. She lives between Munich and Rome. She would like to make a radical statement against bios. nm.moog@Gmail.com - @nina.moog

2021

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Poster image p.22-23: Ear Jewellery Silver 1984, fit to an individual ear

The Golden Nose, moulded from Jan Teunen, 1984

A ‘ s we wait for our desires for human contact to be met without any bad feeling, I’m finding solace in the joys of the tactile.’

IN MUNCIH

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MJW PAPER

Interview and photography by Nina Moog

JOOHEE HAN

Oval, brooch, eggshell, silicone, stainless-steel, 2020

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A 2020 graduate of the Akademie Der Bildenden Künste München, Joohee and I held this conversation at her studio, located on a quiet street in a residential neighbourhood a level underground. Her workspace is set in the corner of a wider studio shared with other artists, her personal area and bench placed across the room from a friend. Joohee’s most recent work relies on a technique where she meticulously places eggshells into silicon, and concerns the question of an ideal type, or form.

Through her brooches and more recent necklaces, eggs – often associated with a specific form – have been transformed into a new shape. In other words, Joohee literally had to break some eggs to make her jewellery. Her pieces feel like a prescient reminder during lockdown, where our expectations to the natural order of things have been in constant shift. As we talked, I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering over to the shelving she built into her desk during the first lockdown. Facing me, this shelf contained several rows of jars, each half-filled with eggshells of different colours and sizes. Standing to attention, these jars created a painterly palette in representation of Joohee’s special attention to both conceptual and technical detail.

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INTERVIEW

Joohee Han in her studio, February 2021, Image by Nina Moog

2021

‘You can wear my pieces, but they are not for everyday.

My work is more about the experience of it.’

NINA MOOG How long have you been working in this studio?

JOOHEE HAN This is my first studio, and I got it before my graduation. At the beginning of the first lockdown in the spring, I spent most of my time building things for the studio. I knew I wanted a drawing table and workbench, as well as a free space to do whatever I want. I built this working bench and this desk myself during April and May. I built the shelves, as well a dividing wall.

NINA

Was the creation of your studio your main focus during lockdown?

JOOHEE I suppose so. At the beginning, it was so difficult to concentrate because everything was closed and there was no stimulation. It was very hard to start working! When all the shops were closed in Germany, the hardware stores were still allowed to be open, which was really fortunate so that I could build my studio — from small screws to big pieces of wood. The most beautiful thing in my studio is that we have really high ceilings. It’s almost five metres high, so I thought could use that space to store things. So I planned to build wall shelves, which was really a pain in the ass at the end, it involved so much drama. It was really hard to drill into the wall, because the walls are made of concrete. It felt like drilling into stone. And I have a fear of heights. I had to climb up the ladder and drill with all the strength I could. When it was finished, I felt like my body would fall apart. I’m really proud of myself, and satisfied. The other thing I really like is my goldsmith bench, which I also built myself and customized.

NINA Let’s talk about the work you showed at Lee Eugean Gallery in December and January 20/21, which was part of your Oval series.

These pieces are made of silicon and eggshell, and continue a series you made as part of your graduation at the Akademie. What continues to attract you to this technical and conceptual idea? I found the idea of addressing perfection through eggs something I could immediately connect to.

JOOHEE Throughout my work, there is a consistent interest in fragility. This series is about the awareness that we’re fragile, and that we’re not perfect. A main difference for this series was my working method.

During my previous study in Korea, I experimented with the material – I didn’t always have a concrete idea in the beginning of making things.

For Oval, I had a concept, and I had the material, but my process wasn’t about experiencing or exploring the material. It was more like I wanted to enable my idea. This also meant, however, that the resulting work was more expected. I knew it would become like this.

Therefore, there is no aesthetic, technical, conceptual development among the pieces. I thought about it, had an idea, I researched how to realise the idea, and that’s what I made. The newer work in the series is therefore more flexible, more entangled. My graduation project consists of brooches, but they also look like objects when they stand on the table. Then I started to make necklaces because they have more body contact.

NINA Why is it important to you that your work be worn, or close to the body?

JOOHEE None of my work is really ‘wearable’, but that depends on how you define wearability. You can wear my pieces, but they are not for everyday. My work is more about the experience of it. An earlier piece of mine is a huge bracelet called Bubble. You cannot wear it in a daily situation, because it will restrict your behaviour. This bracelet can control you. You have to move your arm very carefully, as if you’re carrying a soap bubble that you don’t want to burst. It gives you body awareness and insight into how you move. You can hurt things quite easily, and you can be brutal. I wanted to express this through jewellery, through the wearing of it. Wearability is a big topic because as you experience more experimental work that challenges the confines of contemporary jewellery, the piece often becomes less and less wearable. This can create a contradiction, but it’s also what makes the field so interesting to me.

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Studio images by Nina Moog

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NINA Could you share a little bit about how you realised that eggshells and silicon was the right material for this project?

JOOHEE

Silicon is very important to the work, because it makes things possible that eggshell alone cannot offer. Eggshells on their own don’t have flexibility, and that was one of the core ideas of this series. We are under constant stress that we have to be someone other than who we are, so I wanted the eggshell to be flexible.

NINA How do you go about creating these pieces? In my imagination, first, you eat an egg…

JOOHEE Yes, first I eat an egg and crush the shell. Then, I sort out small and big pieces. I collect and sort the shells in glass dishes, by colour. I usually also make a model before I start. When it’s a curvy shape, I curve it out of Styrofoam but if it has clear, hard edges, I use a paper mould. Then, I make the same shape with a plastic sheet. If it’s a curvy form, I use the vacuum forming machine. Once I have a mould, I can put silicon on the inside of the mould to make a negative form. I put about two centimetres on the surface, and then place eggshells very carefully, one by one.

NINA JOOHEE

Do you have to work very quickly?

Yes, I can get about two by two centimetres done in twenty minutes.

The drying time of silicon determines how fast I can go. When it’s all done, I put another layer all over to strengthen it, and the eggshell rests in the middle of a silicon layer. When I was making brooches, I also created my own brooch pin-back. The usual brooch pin-back doesn’t work in this case, since those involve tension in order to close. I didn’t want to add anything at all besides eggshell and silicon. I wanted to retain the flexibility, which was significant for my concept, so I had to come up with a different mechanism.

NINA Your newest work involves using both sides of the eggshell, where you play with colour gradation.

JOOHEE In the beginning, I was avoiding any aesthetic experimentation. I wanted to stay focused on the initial idea. After graduation, I gave myself freedom to play. I really like the result because you can better understand the material from looking at it. Before, many people were confused with the material and thought it was cork. This was a big problem for me. Lately, there haven’t been many opportunities to show the work physically. Viewed only online, it’s so difficult to understand the material.

NINA As a final note, do you have any role models within jewellery? Who inspires you?

JOOHEE I love looking at the work from design studios, from product design to furniture and interiors. I really like the projects from Studio Swine, English furniture designer Max Lamb as well as Korean designer Kwangho Lee;. When I saw the work ’Hair Highway‘ and ’Sea chair‘ from Studio Swine for the first time, I fell in love with their aesthetic and the method of making. I found projects they do were just so emotionally convincing and creative, visually and technically. I also like English furniture designer Max Lamb, whose Max Lamb’s furniture pieces are so intriguing, not just because of the result but also his making process and material choice. Korean designer Kwangho Lee Kwangho Lee is a Korean designer, who also has background in metalsmithing and jewellery. His approach to furniture is based on craftsmanship, although many of his works are commercially successful. As a maker and someone who has a similar educational background, it is interesting to me how he has forged his career in the both of market of design and the art scene in at the same time in Korea and internationally. When I have questions about the making process and materials of my work, if it’s sustainable and relevant to our time now, these are some of the people I turn towards.

Oval necklace, eggshell, silicone, 2020

2021

Joohee Han is a South Korean jewellery designer. She graduated from the Akademie Der Bildenden Künste München in Prof. Karen Pontoppidan’s class. Her work has been most recently exhibited in the Lee Eugean Gallery in Seoul. Previous exhibitions include Oval, a solo exhibition at Atelier Ursula Sunkler (2020) as well as a Meme, a group show at the Galerie Maurer Zilioli (2020). www.jooheehan - @joo.hee.han

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INTERVIEW

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Interview with Antonia Voit & Karen Pontopiddan by Nina Moog

EXHIBITION MUC/ Schmuck

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Collaboration by Münchner Stadtmuseum and Akademie der Bildende Künste

Impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Münchner Stadtmuseum has been sitting in shuttered darkness, patiently waiting for visitors since last November.

The forced closure did not stop the museum from carrying on with MUC/Schmuck, an exhibition created in tandem with the students in Professor Karin Pontoppidan’s class at Munich’s Akademie der Bildende Künste. Important historical themes like ‘flora and fauna’, ‘portraits’, ‘the spiral’, and more were selected for the students to explore from a contemporary vantage point. The inspiration of such thematic archetypes has resulted in some surprising new jewellery pieces from the students, which are further illuminated by their more traditional museum counterparts.

With the hope that the Statdmuseum can reopen its doors soon, Current Obsession felt it important to shed some light on this joint project while we’re waiting.

The following interview with Münchner Stadtmuseum curator Antonia Voit and Prof. Karen Pontoppidan reveals how both students and the curators reflected on the past to create a fresh, contemporary show. In the context of our current historical moment, rife with fresh challenges, Pontoppidan’s belief that the exhibition should be seen as an object-based analysis of postmodernity gains special relevance.

Interviews were carried out separately, in both German and English.

They were combined and shortened for this feature.

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INTERVIEW

NINA MOOG Could you describe how the collaboDesign by Carl Cosmus, attributed to, executed by: Bijouteriefabrik Jakob Agner, around 1908, brooch, silver, punched, partially oxidized, rubies, turquoise, collection Dry-von Zezschwitz

ration between the Münchner Stadtmuseum and Karen Pontoppidan’s students began?

CURATOR ANTONIA VOIT The occasion for the Münchner Stadtmuseum to conceive the exhibition MUC/Schmuck was based on the acquisition of a private collection of jewellery pieces from Munich, assembled over several decades by art historian Dr. Beate Dry-von Zezschwitz. The collection comprises almost 200 pieces of jewellery, with a chronological focus ranging from the 1880s to the 1930s. The earliest pieces in the collection were created at the end of the 19th century, when Munich developed into a centre for goldsmiths. While studying the Dry-von Zezschwitz collection, we found it exciting to see which themes and ideas occupied Munich-based jewellry artists at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. We quickly became interested in the question of how these themes are still relevant for young jewellery artists today, which is why we contacted Prof.

Karen Pontoppidan and asked whether she and her class would be interested in a joint exhibition project.

PROF. KAREN PONTOPIDDAN The students and I cooperated for a year with the curators from the museum in order to develop an approach relevant for all involved.

From my point of view as an educator, I find it crucial for the students to look upon the subjects of their work, not only as an individual expression of interest, but also as a cultural phenomenon. This exhibition-project offered such a perspective. The curators at the museum were very open towards the ideas of the students, however bigger decisions such as the exhibition architecture, were made by the museum.

NM How were the final pieces selected for the exhibition?

Der Nase nach, Patrik Graf, brooch, 2018, plastic from the sea, birch tar, metal

AV Before we talked directly with the students about their work and the historical work, we asked them to explain in writing why they came to Munich to study, what themes they deal with in their work, what meaning historical styles and techniques have for them, and to what extent nature is a source of inspiration for them. The answers we received were very fruitful and informative for us. They also strengthened our desire to conceive this exhibition together. During the personal exchange with the students it wasn’t an easy task to name concrete themes that would do justice to both historical and contemporary jewellery.

In consultation with one another, we ultimately decided to base the selection of the themes primarily on historical jewellery, which would allow the students to respond with their own work. After a lengthy exchange of ideas, the final selection of pieces was chosen equally - the historical pieces by the curatorial team of the Münchner Stadtmuseum, and the contemporary pieces by Prof. Pontoppidan.

NM What effect is achieved by mixing Contemporary Jewellery with historical art from the Münchner Stadtmuseum?

KP At the first glance, the concept of the exhibition MUC/Schmuck might seem a bit stale; as often is the case, most of the historical pieces look rather familiar and most of the contemporary pieces look rather outlandish in comparison. The relevance of this exhibition project becomes evident when the parameters are framed as a comparison of pieces that express modernity against pieces that express the postmodern condition. Postmodernity is sometimes difficult to comprehend, since it is defined as a reaction to modernity. Therefore, it is a helpful tool to compare current culture to cultural movements of the 19th century. This has happened within architecture, sculpture, literature, but to

‘Postmodernity is sometimes difficult to comprehend, since it is defined as a reaction to modernity.’ my awareness not thoroughly within the field of Contemporary Jewellery.

AV It surprised both of us, and the jewellery class at the Academy, just how well the combination of

the historical and contemporary jewellery worked within the different themes. Not only do they coexist easily, but the combination also allows the respective social frameworks and artistic intentions to emerge much more clearly. An example of this are the two crabs that can be seen in the exhibition theme ‘Natures’, which forms a central chapter of the exhibition. he two-dimensional brooch made of silver in the T shape of a crab, designed by Carl Cosmus in 1908, has been paired with the brooch Der Nase nach by Patrik Graf, created in 2018, which also depicts a crab. While nature was a source of inspiration for artists of the Art Nouveau period, through which they hoped to find their own new formal language, today's students reflect a different concept of

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Patrik Graf, brooch "98.5%", 2020, pig nose, color, steel

Alwin Schreiber, Follower, around 1912, ivory, carved, sawn, turquoise, silver. Collection Dry-von Zezschwitz

Round plate as an insert or support for jewellery, Friedrich Schmid (-Geiler), around 1934, gold, gold granulation.

Collection Dry-von Zezschwitz

Joohee Han, Overlapping Cones brooch, eggshell, silicone, 2020

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nature, one that has been expanded to include social aspects. For example, Graf’s piece addresses environmental problems by using processed plastic waste from the sea.

KP

theme ‘Influences from Distant Lands’ is also an interesting category for this line of thought.

A particular attitude towards foreign cultures, and a consuming approach towards symbols originating from a different context, becomes visible in the historic pieces. This problematic attitude is, however, still present in today’s globalised world, and therefore needs to be examined through a critical lens, both in past and present times. In short, although today we recognise cultural appropriation as problematic, we seldom recognise the extent to which it is interwoven into our own culture.

T he works of the students are reactions on these timeless subjects, which create a compelling visual comparison and serve as surface fabric for the underlying discourse. With each theme a twofold question is raised: how was the subject perceived within the historical timeframe and how is it perceived today? What we see throughout the exhibition is therefore the spirit of the different times; the examination of modernity often reveals notions like positivism, progress, the achievements of man, the ideal, authenticity and authority. On the other hand, the contemporary pieces demonstrate a critical attitude towards all of the above and promote relativity, plurality and diversity.

I'll give some examples. Dealing with a theme like ivory, issues of wildlife protection comes to mind, which can easily turn into condemning the deeds of the people in the past. Through the comparison of ivory with the materials used in the contemporary pieces, for example animal fat, the complexity of the subject surfaces more clearly. It questions the reasoning for using ivory in the past, as well as the reasoning of how today’s culture uses animals. In short, the discrepancy between the materials of the past and present becomes so obvious that it hopefully starts to generate critical thinking. The

NM

AV

I ’d love to conclude with some perspective on the holdings of the museum collection. 19th century jewellery art in Munich is known for its assimilation and revival of historical styles and techniques. Why do you think there was such a fascination with techniques from, for example, the Bronze Age or the Renaissance?

Yes, Munich was a centre of historicism. In 1897, an observer noted that especially Munich arts and crafts played the leading role in Germany in the last decades of the remaking of old styles. A significant contribution to this was certainly made by the King Ludwig II's numerous commissions, which were based on past styles and certainly made a significant contribution.

Conversely, the master Fritz von Miller was formative for goldsmiths art from 1868 to 1912, first as a teacher and later as a professor for

metalwork at the Munich School of Applied Arts. He shaped a climate in Munich that made it possible for the craftsmen working here, even after the emergence of Art Nouveau, to take an unconcerned interest in historical styles and techniques.

Renaissance style was increasingly brought into focus at the large art and craft exhibition by the Bavarian Arts and Crafts Association in 1876.

In addition to contemporary works, historical works from the Romanesque period to the 18th century were shown under the title Unserer Väter Werke (The Works of our Fathers). As a result of this exhibition, the jewellery stores of Munich filled up with neo-Renaissance jewellery.

At the end of the 1880s, Rococo came back into fashion, which is illustrated in the MUC/Schmuck exhibition via brooches with putti motifs by Karl Rothmüller and Theodor Schallmayer. From about 1907, Munich goldsmiths like Adolf von Mayrhofer and Max Strobl were concerned with early historical forms and ornaments, especially the spiral motif, as it has been handed down from the from the Bronze Age. It aroused their interest and inspired their designs for jewellery and utensils. These works were not copies of historical models, but a reference to bronze-age jewellery that simultaneously demonstrated a modern taste for simplicity and originality.

Sarah Powell, Fire and water, necklace, 2020, flint, steel, indigo, silk

Ring, stone carving: Martin Seitz, setting: Gudrun Seitz around 1950, Lagenstein, negative cut; Gold, cast, chased, soldered Collection Dry-von Zezschwitz

Mariko Kakinaga, Fifteen brooches "a pinch of ...", 2020, copper, salt, pepper, sugar, resin

Brooch, unknown, Munich 1888, white metal, punched, enamelled.

Collection Dry-von Zezschwitz

Paul Adie, YES, pendant, 2020, aluminum, paint, thread

Karl Rothmüller, around 1910, brooch, gold, cast, soldered, turquoise, pearls. Collection Dry-von Zezschwitz

2021

The curators at the Münchner Stadtmuseum are Jutta Hofmann-Beck,

Konstantin Lannert, Antonia Voit. Exhibition design/architecture was made by CPWH -

Caroline Perret, Winston Hampel. Graphic design was done by Wiegand von Hartmann.s

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Essay and photography by Nina Moog

GERD ROTHMANN

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Original over Original, gold, 2018.

A mould was made from a middle finger, cast in gold and stuck back onto the finger

Most of what I know about Gerd Rothmann I learned from a long conversation we had while sitting together at a large table in his living room, drinking black tea with candied sugar. His home contains a pleasant, orderly atmosphere that betrays the considered aesthetic of its owner. Filled with light entering from large windows facing the street, the ceilings are high and the living room holds a carefully considered assortment of different, individual chairs. While I decided which chair I wanted to sit on, Gerd told me that he had drilled large holes into the back of one of the chairs to make it feel less anonymous. Finally, I perched on a friendly wooden stool with industrial metal legs. Gerd has lived in this apartment on the Frauen­hof­ erstrasse for forty years, and - much to his chagrin - has seen the neighbourhood considerably gentrify. Now, Gerd told me, there are far too many yuppies and fashion stores.

This interview was conducted in German and translated into English.

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Laid out on the table beside us were several silver necklaces, which displayed Gerd’s thumbprint cast on one side of oblong shaped pieces of silver. Gerd told me that he had taken out the pieces in preparation for an upcoming May exhibition of his work in Hudson, New York. He wanted to get a good look at the work, and determine what was missing. These pieces are part of his most recent series Mit meinem Daumen modelliert (Modelled By My Own Thumb, 2020.) One of the necklaces looked familiar. I’d seen it a week before, when I visited Gerd’s underground studio, which is located a few minutes walk from his home. At the time, he had energetically picked up the piece from a worktable and swiftly fastened the necklace around my neck. Due to the fixture on the back, he told me that if I were to walk around the atelier, the necklace would twist and turn with the movement of my body. At first, he had been unsure about this twisting effect, but then realised it allowed for both his thumbprint and the opposing smooth, silver surface to be revealed. In the end, this pleased him. Gerd told me that it’s hard to assess a piece without it being worn; that jewellery, like an actor, requires its own stage. He’s therefore decidedly of the school that believes that jewellery belongs on the body.

When I noted the way in which intimacy can be quickly established when you allow someone else to fasten a necklace around your neck, Gerd nodded. He told me that he often hears that a necklace is really beautiful, but it’s ‘not for me.’ If he takes the necklace and places it around the neck of a person, there’s awe and surprise on the part of the wearer. Suddenly, the necklace has a new context: both piece and person have transformed.

An interaction has taken place.

Modelled by my own Thumb, silver, 2020

During our conversation, Gerd would often think of something, and energetically spring up from the table to quickly retrieve an example of what he was talking about. Now, he brought out a catalogue of the open-air museum Storm King Art Center in New York. We both marvelled at the project’s scope, which includes the largest collection of outdoor sculptures from Alexander Calder to Richard Serra. Flipping through the pages, Gerd took his time. He’d pulled the catalogue because the idea behind his most recent series emerged from a piece he made in homage to the late Peter Stern, a New York art collector and the founder of Storm King.

The two men were friends, and after his death, Gerd decided to make a silver collar with colour pigments in a work entitled Modelliert mit dem Daumen von Peter Stern (Modelled With the Thumb of Peter Stern, 2019).

The ridges of a fingerprint, where the print is different with each person, provides a natural grip for colour pigment, allowing Gerd to experiment with colour.

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ESSAY

‘He told me that he often hears that a necklace is really beautiful, but it’s ‘not for me.’ If he takes the necklace and places it around the neck of a person, there’s awe and surprise on the part of the wearer. Suddenly, the necklace has a new context: both piece and person have transformed .’

Despite his passing, the silicon mould of Stern’s thumb was ready because Gerd had made a prior piece for him using his thumbprint. Gerd always saves the fingerprint moulds he makes, and now holds an extensive archive containing hundreds. He told me that in order to make a good piece of jewellery, you need something new, a strong idea you can hold onto. He thought he maybe had it with this latest series, but only time would tell.

Through its origins as an homage, the series also gestures to Gerd’s historical position within the field of Contemporary Jewellery. Gerd knew Peter Stern through the well-known art and jewellery collector Helen Drutt.

Her former Philadelphia gallery was one of Gerd’s first contacts in the United States, partially responsible for widening the goldsmith’s influence abroad.

Our conversation meandered away from his contemporary work to Gerd’s beginnings in jewellery. Gerd told me that he ‘started to make jewellery and there was no substantial reason for it. I just slipped into it. There’s no one in my family that makes jewellery.’ He described to me what has been published elsewhere, how he came to Munich to visit Hermann Jünger in the mid 1960’s after he saw Jünger’s work in a newspaper. The pieces were so new, and Gerd was filled with a strong desire to go and work in his workshop. After hitchhiking to Munich, Gerd rang Jünger’s doorbell and informed him that he wanted to work for him. He recalled that kids were running around within a fairly chaotic atmosphere. Jünger asked Gerd, then in his early twenties, if he could also babysit. Gerd immediately said yes. When asked how much money he wanted to earn in exchange for his work and babysitting, Gerd named a really low price in an attempt to ensure his employment. At some point, his salary was raised.

After a years time, Gerd decided to open his own studio but maintained a relationship with Jünger.

In 1972, Gerd travelled to the fifth Documenta show in Kassel and visited an exhibition created by the Swiss artist and curator Harald Szeemann (1933-2005). For Gerd, this show was ‘completely revolutionary.’ Often cited as the first time that ‘outsider art’ was represented publicly, the exhibition included replicas of Adolf Wölfi’s (1864-1930) hospital room as well as books and other objects from the Waldau Psychiatry Collection near Bern. The impact of seeing these so-called ‘private mythologies,’ which reveal an identity of the depiction and the pictured, stayed with Gerd. The pieces exposed a fresh example of how people made art as a means to show their own world experience. For Gerd, the show captured something independent of an art movement, something that felt ‘open’ to him. He felt energised. Around the same time period, Gerd discovered the artwork of American artist Bruce Nauman through magazines and catalogues. Gerd told me he felt like, ‘wow, ok, there is something new happening in the world. But I had a problem since my interest wasn’t in making art, but in creating jewellery.’

After the show, he returned to Munich and wondered, ’what can I do to work at the level of this exhibition?‘ He then started to think about the body.

Gerd’s gold and silver body casts from the 1970s are well known in part because they are emblematic of a historical boundary blurring in Munich, where previous definitions of what had been considered jewellery were called into question. During this period, Gerd briefly considered repositioning himself as a sculptor, but a good friend talked him out of it, for which he’s grateful. (When I asked him why, he simply replied ‘I’m a goldsmith’). His body casts are beautiful, and arguably contain a surreal, playful aftertaste. Paging through Gerd’s Werkverzeichnis 1967 until 2008, an epic monograph which depicts the extensive reservoir of his work, I paused at a few pieces that celebrate this interest. In 1982, Gerd made a video entitled 60 Ringe in 60 Sekunden, (60 Rings in 60 Seconds.)

Aptly titled, the film is one minute of Gerd jamming brass curtain rings on and off of his hands at a manic pace. He practiced over a week so that he would be able to do so fast enough, using a stopwatch to time himself. On the same page in his monograph, the piece Gold Unter Meinem Fingernägeln (Gold Underneath My Fingernails, 1983) is depicted. When I asked Gerd about it, he told me that goldsmiths work with gold and therefore it’s possible that gold dust comes to rest under your fingernails. ‘The black under your fingernails is dirt, but it could be gold instead of dirt. That’s the idea.’ The piece itself is composed of ten little half moons you could push under your fingernails. He told me that he also made another piece, Sechster Finger (Sixth Finger, 1978) which aims to play with the questions posed by the body. For him, these pieces ‘turn themselves a little away from jewellery.’

Gerd told me about another piece, based upon the form fingers make while clutching a ball of wax, entitled Zwischen den Fingern (Between the Fingers, 1980), made of cast tin. This last piece interested him because of what it reveals about the way we act with jewellery, even with pieces that may not seem wearable at first glance. ‘You

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When I noted my interest in his work which relates to a certain humour, Gerd opened an elongated, red box and dropped a necklace on the table. ‘This necklace actually has something very conventional. There’s the chain, and then the ‘beads’, and then the chain again.

But I thought, they shouldn’t be beads but chewed up chewing gum cast in gold.’ I imagined Gerd sitting somewhere on a park bench, stuffing one chewing gum after another in his mouth. Or did he gather chewing gum chewed up by other people, friends? Gerd chewed them himself, collected them in a box, and then sent them off to Pforzheim, a city on the edge of the Black Forest.

Making the necklace, however, was no easy task. The casters called back and informed him they wouldn’t, in fact, be casting his chewing gum. ‘They told me, it’s not aesthetic.’ He eventually changed their mind by telling them, ‘listen, this is going to be in a museum!’ This piece felt a little different to me than his other work, which is so directly connected to the human body, but Gerd saw a connection. He likes to work with what is ‘vorhanden,’ or what is available to him. What happened by accident, he noted, is that the chewing gum pieces cast in gold ended up looking like gold nuggets. The way in which the piece could shift meaning appealed to Gerd, and he appreciated the possible dual interpretation of those lumps of gold.

An interest in shifting meanings equally applies to an interest in wordplay. Gerd collects phrases involving reference to gold. The German phrase ‘Sich eine goldene Nase verdienen,’ cannot really be translated directly into English, but translated literally it means ‘to have

earned a golden nose.’ Its meaning is, indirectly, meant to indicate a successful person. He told me, however, that the search for gold within language is limited. There isn’t much to find. I suddenly thought of the Italian goodnight expression ‘sogni d’oro,’ which means ‘dreams of gold.’ Gerd lifted his eyebrows, ‘oh, good one,’ and then quickly wrote it down in his notebook. He keeps written recollections of his experiences in his work. Some of these were previously published in his aforementioned monograph Werkverzeichnis. Gerd plans to update the monograph to include the work he’s produced in the last decade, and has therefore been collecting new writing.

He showed me a few pages of these tiny vignettes. Within the space of two or three sentences, these spare narratives hold a mythic, fable-like quality.

Here are a few of my favourites: he husband of C. passed away very young. She asked T me what I could make out of her wedding ring. The ring was heavy and made of pure gold. I made the ring larger and larger until finally her hand could slip through it. She said: now I have ‘him,’ around my wrist.

G.E., an older lady, had eleven grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. I was fascinated. I made a necklace with the names and birthdates. Very moved, the client told me ‘now I have all my grandchildren and great grandchildren around my neck and when I can’t remember a name, I can look it up!’

Gold Signet Ring, 1986. Fingerprint from the client or owner

don’t,’ he told me, ‘just spread your fingers and let the piece fall to the ground.’ While watching someone wear this piece for a whole evening, Gerd had witnessed how she made little adjustments with her hands to keep the piece in place, but never allowed it clatter to the ground.

‘It’s just like a handbag stays in your hand. You don’t randomly drop it,’ he pointed out; ‘with this piece of work, you just hold it.’ Gerd is fascinated by the fact that there are things that you just don’t do, that introducing something to the body can allow for its acceptance as fact. ‘There are things and they are just there, and the person finds it self evident and doesn’t even think about it.’ He gave another example, that of pimples. We don’t just scratch open pimples in public. This idea was really interesting to him. Our conversation then turned to cell phones - how they are always in our hands, operating as new extensions of our bodies. Gerd told me that he thought it was wonderful, the cell phone and its heaviness in the hand. He liked watching how people text with their fingers in the underground, and how they handle their cell phones in frenzied texting sprees.

These short bursts of storytelling speak to where Gerd lays his focus; the importance of his work is linked to individual people and his interactions with them. Yet the charming atmosphere and whiff of nostalgia they convey may not always apply to his actual jewellery. Carefully placed in stacked boxes, golden impressions of skin and bone can trigger an impression of the macabre. Out of a small box, Gerd took out a ring and handed it to me. It was a cast of the piece of skin that the ring itself covered when worn: gold ‘skin’ replacing the skin beneath it. For him, this piece demonstrates how a finger, cast from gold and worn on the original finger can become jewellery.

The idea has a purity to it. It’s simple. His work is often based upon an act of duplication: an interest in creating a wearable impression of the body on the body. His work implies that there can’t be a more potent definition of an individual than the cast taken from that individual. When that cast is taken from a person, and handed to another, it creates new meaning. It’s interesting to him when this exchange can perform well and when it cannot. ‘If this ring was the skin of another person, like her boyfriend or something,’ he told me, ‘then it could be macabre. If it’s your own finger, the piece becomes possible.’

Gerd took another piece out of a carefully labelled box, and I felt a jolt. Von Ihm für Sie (From Him for Her, 1990) is a wide, hinged bracelet made of a male wrist cast in gold. Alongside the clear cast of veins, the protruding bump of the wrist bone grants the cast its special shape. Inspected at close range, tiny, individual pores on the skin are visible. This piece came to life for an architect friend that Gerd often made jewellery for. He was asked to make something for the architect’s wife, and was granted time and support to make it. After a while, an idea came to him. “I told him, ‘we’ll take your wrist and form it, and then we’ll take it off, we’ll pour it into metal and she will then wear it as a bracelet. So this is his wrist for her.” Gerd explained that the husband had a bigger wrist, and because the woman was quite small, the bracelet fit her exactly. I asked if the process of making the mould rips away the arm hair, if it’s painful. Gerd laughed. ‘Naturally,’ he told me. Gerd is often asked how many pieces exist of a given work.

When he creates a commission, like in this case, Gerd makes a duplicate for himself to keep it in his archive.

Should a piece be requested by a museum, then a third piece comes into the world.

From Him to Her, gold, 1990

Chewing Gum Necklace, gold, 1990

Her tendency was for a bracelet. But she gave herself time. She looked at it, tried it on, looked again. Gradually it became clear, what the bracelet did to her. It grew dominant and compelling. The bracelet had waited for her.

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ESSAY

They Visited Me and Crowned Themselves, gold and silver, 2015

2021

‘There isn’t life and work,’ Gerd told me, ‘it’s always one and the same.’

Towards the end of our conversation, I showed Gerd some work from the jeweller Jo Harrison Hall. A recent graduate from Central Saint Martins, her pieces also draw from the body, in exploration of hygiene as ritual.

Her material is not focused on metals; she incorporates materials she associates with hygiene. Some pieces, hand carved from soapstone hold resemblance to one of Gerd’s pieces, Grosser Faustkeil (Big Arrowhead, 1980.) To make this piece, Gerd clenched a wax ball and then cast the remaining relief, generating a negative form of his knuckles and cast it in tin. After scrolling through her Instagram together, Gerd told me that when he looks at such pieces, he feels reminded of the dangers of a contemporary art school system which encourages artists to exhibit early and frequently, often before they’re ready to show work.

Gerd believes in craft, in a necessary training period and the implied adherence to the guidance of a master. He does see, however, connections between his work and younger designers. Gerd told me about a recent print from the fashion house Schiaparelli. Creative designer Daniel Roseberry has marked the 1930’s Schiaparelli ‘signature’ with his own use of fingerprints. Gerd particularly liked a fabric pattern where a fingerprint had been reproduced, covering a white suit in organised rows for the Fall-Winter 2020 collection. He wanted to show me a photo, so we walked together into the small office leading off of his kitchen.

Gerd clicked open a file on his computer. Allegedly, Elsa Schiaparelli was one of the first designers to authenticate her designs, putting her fingerprints on the tags of clothes to avoid being copied. Gerd sees his own thumbprint as an insignia, akin to a crest or seal. When showing me Mit meinem Daumen modelliert (Modelled By My Own Thumb, 2020), he told me, ‘I am the artist. I am the creator of the piece. Therefore, the work is stamped with my thumb.’ As we looked at the Schiaparelli suit, light seeped into the room through a window, under which a large gun lay on the windowsill. I told him guns, even toy guns, frighten me. He jauntily picked it up and handed it to me, as if to assure me it wasn’t real. (It wasn’t, but had a certain heft.) Gerd’s art gun, a gift from a friend,

stays under the window to dissuade unwelcome visitors.

He told me, ‘maybe a thief will peek in, see the gun, and get frightened away.’ We both cackled.

A few encounters and swift telephone calls here and there aren’t enough to get to know someone, but my sense was that Gerd is someone with a sharp sense of humour.

Hinting at a love for play, Gerd’s long-held impulse to make a gold and silver crown without commission links to his desire to create. He told me, ‘you develop an interest, and you do it because you enjoy doing it. The idea develops over time. Finally, you get somewhere where you can show someone something, and that’s another step. But when you show a piece to someone, it already has a form.’ Gerd always wanted to make a crown. One day, around 2008, he finally had time to spare as well as a bit of extra money. When the crown was done and lying on the table, his desire suddenly felt absurd. He asked himself, ‘what’s the point of this? What does it serve other than my own private wish to make a crown? It has nothing to do with the contemporary moment.’ He felt that if he showed it to someone they would think, ‘what does he want with a crown today? The world has different problems.’ He didn’t know what he wanted to do with it.

Finally, Gerd came up with the idea of taking photographs of friends and family. The piece then had a new meaning, a way to generate a collaborative photographic work that also served as a record of his visitors. Entitled Sie Besuchten mich und Krönten sich (They Visited Me and Crowned Themselves, 2015), today these photographs live in a manila folder. The images usually show two people, where one is in the process of being crowned by the other. Gerd instructed his visitors how to stand, and what position to take. The photographs were all taken in his home; this is no crown that knows the rush of travel.

As we looked through the photographs, I asked him how he knows when a project ends, or a series is complete.

Now, he told me, ‘I took three hundred photos, three hundred and fifty photos. I was done. Your interest ends, in a very natural form. Then it’s over.’

Late in the day, Gerd and I were tired of talking. I’d had more than my share of Darjeeling, and the sky outside the windows had darkened. It was time for me to go home. Before I left, Gerd told me he had recently read an interview by Raymond Pettibon, an artist in part known for his connection to Sonic Youth. He rummaged through his CDs, and grabbed Goo (1990). He walked over to the table, sliding out the album insert to show me Pettibon’s cover art: a black and white image of two sunglass-wearing mods. I resisted a brief urge to rifle through the rest of his CDs. ‘Pettibon was really integrated with Sonic Youth, and very much in the scene,’ he told me. He had sprung upon Pettibon because I had asked him a banal question about his routine, his division of work and play. Gerd had thought of Pettibon because the artist had mixed the two, integrating work and life as an indiscernible whole.

‘There isn’t life and work,’ Gerd told me. ‘It’s always one and the same’. Was he sure that was healthy? Ostensibly, such attitudes imply that you’re always working. He told me, sternly,‘ but it’s not just working, it’s also living.’ I told him that I need pure relaxation time because I am, after all, living in Europe for a reason. He told me that working was also a form of relaxation, but he assured me he has down time outside of his atelier. He visits museums, meets a friend for a beer. These are also the moments when the global pandemic slithers up from behind him to interfere in his life. Other than that, the rhythms of his week are much the same as a year ago.

‘What I certainly don’t do,’ Gerd clarified, ‘is lie down on the beach and tan. That’s not my thing.’ I pulled on my shoes, and clomped down the stairs from his apartment down to the Frauenhoferstrasse. I haven’t listened to Sonic Youth for a long time. When I got home, I flipped through the pages of Gerd’s Werkverzeichnis and stopped to pause on a page of his well-known body casts: a nose on a nose, the ears of silver, the golden Achilles heel. Kim Gordon crooned in the background, and the pieces suddenly looked punk. I turned up the music, and I let it rip through my apartment out into the quiet streets of Munich.

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MJW PAPER

Interview By Nina Moog

2

JASMINE MATZAKOW During my conversation with Jasmin Matzakow, I was shown a photograph of the sculptor Brancusi in his studio. In the black and white portrait, the sculptor sits with his hands folded and legs crossed in an image of calm repose. Sitting on a large piece of white stone, he is framed by tall sculptures visible in the background as he gazes out of the image. The photograph feels composed and intimate, rendering the workspace of one of the founding figures of modern sculpture a place of ascetic meditation. Jasmin pointed out that this portrayal of an artist in his studio feigns reality. In his case, Brancusi had staff at his disposal, and likely the space was chaotic. Studio visits can romanticise or even fetishise the artist and their space, and Jasmin was drawing attention to the assumptions inherent within the format I was asking her to participate in.

It’s unusual that the subject throws the entire studio visit format into question, but I could relate. Is it the studio visit really the best format with which to highlight an artist; what does their space truly reveal? Jasmin does not release photos of unfinished works for example, and mostly rejects the Brancusi-esque formate.

From our conversation, it was clear that Jasmin is someone actively engaged with the potential debates surrounding her work, and the field at large.. The format of her questions often involved an interrogation of the premises buried within a given practice. She told me that debates interrogating structural biases and identity politics are often not conducted in the field of Contemporary Jewellery: it’s time they take up more real estate.

This interview was conducted over tea and two pieces of cake generously provided

by Jasmin; yogurt mandarin and a Frankfurter Kranz. It was conducted in German and has been reduced from its original form.

6

27

INTERVIEW

Survivor, from the Base Unit series, 2016

2021

NINA MOOG What have you been working on and thinking about during lockdown?

JASMIN MATZAKOW Before Corona, I started with new ideas a few times, but then I noticed that those ideas weren’t working for me. The themes I’ve been thinking about up until now are, for example, Memories of Healing, as a title for a group of objects, or Ecotechnomagic, which is my work with stinging nettles. I kept thinking that I needed a new theme to start a new series. But I have realised it’s not really about finding a new theme, it’s about finding a new approach.

I’m very interested in feminist texts. I lived in Stockholm for three years, and feminism was a huge topic of discussion there. Since then, I have been really focused on incorporating those ideas into my thinking. Along with the male gaze, there is also a Western gaze and this has been preoccupying me. Our Western jewellery, especially in the Contemporary Jewellery centres of Munich and Amsterdam, is by virtue of its location composed of a Western understating of art.

To give an example, I was in Turkey for two months, and studied a technique using gold powder in Istanbul. In my experience there, the art understanding was focused on following and copying the work of your teacher. From a Western perspective, we dismiss that as art and we see it as traditional craft. We use non-western art as a source of inspiration, an enrichment to our art, a practice that is understood as perfectly normal and hardly questioned. I don’t want to dismiss the practice of getting inspired from art works of different cultures entirely; I want to discuss the fine balance to cultural appropriation.

NINA So you’ve been reflecting upon the way originality holds varied cultural value?

JASMIN I’ve been reflecting upon the ways in which the Western way seems to be understood as the only valid, real form of art jewellery. And the idea that originality is a value and a criteria of good art in and of itself belongs within a Western perspective. That perspective is one within which I was raised and educated; I am half Greek, and have also been raised in Greek culture. Despite coming from a multicultural background which has given me an awareness of other perspectives, my worldview has been highly impacted by Western understandings and cultural assumptions.

A ‘ long with the male gaze, there is also a Western gaze and this has been preoccupying me.’

lso, I believe the contemporary art scene looks down on folk art. Bavarian folk art, A for example, is super interesting. Every colour and shape has a meaning, and it handles complicated, heavy themes, like death. It’s not ’easy‘ or ’simple‘ artwork. It’s just as complex as what we do in Contemporary Jewellery.

NINA In what ways do you think Contemporary Jewellery looks down on folk art?

JASMIN I think folk art is often taken as a source of inspiration, an asset - as a way to then make what is in the West then considered as real art.

Within the topics of cultural appropriation, structures of patriarchy, colonial structures… there is clearly so much to discuss and talk about.

I have the strong feeling, however, this is something that should also be expressed within objects. I’m still finding my way in how to do that within my own work. In general, I want to find a different approach towards making and looking at art jewellery. I want a better analysis for what Western perspective is exactly, and where I myself judge may the quality of a given work from a Western structure based in patriarchy.

NINA You want to start breaking that apart. How have these interests changed the way you interact with the artwork of others?

JASMIN Well, that’s a constantly evolving process, luckily. The field of Contemporary Jewellery is active globally, in many different cultures.

But because of the consequences of colonial structures, the focus from all around the world is still on Western Europe. In my workshops, I approach the work of international artists from my Western education, as I have internalised this system. I could come to their work and say

MJW PAPER

Studio wall shot. Photo: Nina Moog

28

to them, “this isn’t western jewellery that you’re making -and this is how could you change that.” Of course, no one actually says anything like that or consciously thinks like that. And we shouldn’t! But the structures of that way of thinking are subconsciously present for all of us, even without realizing it, and they exist within myself. These are systems of judgment and values, and to put it very clearly, they are racist and misogynist structures. It is so important to acknowledge this fact and then try to work out different ways of discussing and teaching from there.

NINA Does this reveal itself within what you’re reading and looking at?

JASMIN Yes. A few years ago, I read a feminist post online that she wasn’t reading any more work by male writers. I read it and thought, wow!

What kind of an odd statement and position is that? Then, I reflected and asked myself, well, who have I been reading? I realised it was just women. I didn’t make a big statement about it, but it was my reality.

At the moment, I’m more interested in what women have to say because we are telling different stories. It’s the same with anti-racist texts. There’s an effort involved to check-in and to hold in my line of sight art from people of colour, queer people. It is necessary to give those works attention and see how important they are, and to do it without engaging with cultural appropriation.

In contemporary jewellery, these topics are handled so rarely. They are almost nonexistent, and it’s a shame.

NINA

Why do you think that is?

JASMIN I feel like in Contemporary Jewellery the criticism where the modality of work is put to question, and where motivations are challenged and pushed isn’t visible enough. A discussion about how and why we’re teaching Contemporary Jewellery in the way that we do isn’t really present within the jewellery community. I wish I had a clear-cut recipe on how to challenge that in my own practice as a teacher. Engaging in these discussions with students and colleagues, however difficult and in times painful, has been a good start.

NINA I think your own work is well positioned to generate this kind of debate. Ecotechnomagic brings up questions about our position within the structure of capitalism, for example. Could you explain your use of stinging nettles?

JASMIN I wanted to work with a material that isn’t circulated within our financial system or market. At first, I was considering trash, but that’s already part of our cycle and has had a really long life. At some point, I read about the nettles in a cookbook. And I realised that this has connections to makeup, medicine and more. In the Middle Ages, underwear was even made of stinging nettles.

NINA Really? I didn’t know that!

JASMIN Yes. You can make it much finer than what I did for my work. I harvest the nettles, then I take off the leaves, and then dry them. I then place them in water. The skin then needs to be pulled off, and then it gets weaved together. This technique is from the Stone Age, and it's a very old and easy way to make string.

NINA Have questions of cultural appropriation come up within your own work?

JASMIN Yes… It was really important to me that these pieces come from the Mid-European tradition. When I was doing my Masters, I realised how important it is to take wood from your own environment -as opposwed to so-called ’exotic‘ wood from rainforests that I have been working with previously. I started working with Linden trees, and made sure that everything was locally sourced. During my time in Sweden, I also started to become interested in tattoos and scarification. There is a history of tattoos in Northern Europe, and their use was part of an important initiation ritual. People were also tattooed here. I met someone from Nigeria and he said, in reference to one of my Memories of Healing pieces, ‘Oh, this could be from Nigeria.’

NINA Are such associations problematic for you?

JASMIN I haven’t reached a conclusion there. With the person from Nigeria, I asked him if he found my work difficult. Up until now, no one has come into dialogue with me and told me- ‘What you’re doing is problematic.’ I myself find it very difficult to assess. The intention was that it’s rooted where I made the work, in Sweden or Germany.

Maybe it’s also something beautiful that it could be from different cultures. But I find this topic really complicated.

NINA I wasn’t sure if you were trying to play with those associations.

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INTERVIEW

Rhizome, from the Ecotechnomagic series

2021

‘I wanted to work with a material that isn’t circulated within our financial system or market.’

body. It’s also skin, but it’s inside of us. If it comes out of you, you’re dead. People eat it, we make sausages out of it. I find it an incredible material!

NINA Yes, I had to think about Bavaria right away. It’s so Bavarian! Where do you buy it?

JASMIN At the butcher, especially in Bavaria. Apparently a lot of people here make their own sausages. I knew that this intestine was fascinating, but I always hid from it a little bit but now I’m thinking, no, I want to focus on it. The egg is also a really significant material. It connects to the stinging nettles because it’s an ancient source of sustenance, and contains a lot of magic. Eggs are used in shamanism to cleanse.

It has a very wide bracket of assignments and functions.

JASMIN Well, this work concerns ritual and magic. When you wear a piece of jewellery, you might have a different feeling in your body, a different identity, or a new kind of sensitivity because of the nature of the piece. Jewellery can also be psychological, or playful. It touches on something ’othered‘, where it holds connections to non-patriarchal art. I’m realising that I am delving into that topic more deeply and these are the next steps in my work.

NINA This piece contains something protective.

NINA Is your more recent work focused on necklaces?

JASMIN Yes. It’s one of the parts of the body that I find the most interesting.

Necklaces are one of the most fundamental types of jewellery that exist. The movement of putting your head down to put something around your neck is so ancient, it’s almost like breathing. It’s really essential and it fits really well within these whole topics we’ve been discussing. When I was researching tattoos, in many traditional shamanic societies, most of the tattoos were placed at joints because that is where bad spirits can enter your body. Those are the weak places in the body, and so those places need more protection. The idea of necklaces as a kind of protection feels particularly strong to me. When I say the idea of necklaces as protection fascinates me, that’s almost not enough, because I celebrate that association and use it in my work. I want to activate it.

JASMIN Yes, but it also has something very present. If you wear this, you have to present yourself. The burning of these pieces is significant.

Bringing fire into contact with wood is a very aggressive, transformative action. I also find them very beautiful, and this beauty is created by this aggressive action. As humans, we experience all kinds of things that can be very unpleasant. If we don’t hide from these things, if we work through it psychologically, then something fertile can emerge.

In other words, in our development as individuals, we can become really beautiful if we’re burned. Actually, my most recent work isn’t that beautiful, which is challenging. I want to free myself from that pressure. A hard topic can also just be hard, it doesn’t also need to be beautiful.

Jasmin Matzakow (b. 1982) is of German and Greek origin. She apprenticed to a goldsmith for one

NINA Why don’t you find them beautiful?

year before attending the jewellery program of Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle, where she received her Diploma of Arts in 2010. In 2008, Matzakow co-founded Schmuckkantine, a platform that

JASMIN For example, here is a blown out chicken egg within an intestine,

organised workshops, exhibitions and catalogues. She moved to Stockholm during 2013 to pursue

which is the casing used to make sausages. This is work is in progress there is something calming and beautiful in my previous work and it’s missing from the things I’m trying out right now. I’ve been working with the intestine for a few years, and I think it's really interesting but unsettling material. For us, it’s our immune system. If our intestine works, everything else works too. It’s the core, the essence of our

studies in the Ädellab department at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, from which she graduated in June 2015 with an MFA. During her studies, she co-founded The Pack, a team of two artists and one designer researching the meaning of craft in our society in a philosophical context. In 2016, she moved to Munich, Germany, to work as assistant professor to Karen Pontoppidan at the Art Academy Munich, and to continue her studio practice with international exhibitions and projects.

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MJW PAPER

Exhibition by Judith Bloedjes, CODA MUSEUM Apeldoorn

Wearable Art Installation by Judith Bloedjes, Image by Pim Rusch

POETIC CERAMICS

CODA Museum, Apeldoorn is currently showing Poetic Ceramics, a beautifully orchestrated exhibition of the distinguished oeuvre of ceramicist and jeweller Judith Bloedjes, celebrating CODA’s recent acquisitions of her work. Poetic Ceramics will include hundreds of works of jewellery from Bloedjes’ extensive career, monumental objects from her performances and sketches, drawings and material samples from the artist’s workshop. Accompanying the exhibition is the release of Bloedjes’ book of the same title, which frames the history, experimentation and meticulous craftsmanship behind her works of jewellery, sculpture, installation and home objects.

Masterfully thrown from creamy Limoges porcelain and encased in an array of carefully formulated celadon-style glazes, Judith Bloedjes’ cyclical ceramics re­imagine the stark whites and regimented forms of utilitarian, minimalist design.

Her works utilise rounded, organic, porcelain forms and serene silver contours to embrace the softness of the human body. Although her work centres emptiness,

with the repeated motif of the circle or halo, there is nothing hollow about experiencing Bloedjes’ works, which range from energetic choreographies of churning bodies punctuated by unblemished porcelain loops, to vessels with odd slumps and lumps, each made individual by its idiosyncrasies, to enormous, tranquil porcelain mobiles that gently drift with the movement of the air.

The serenity and subtlety of Bloedjes’ works are neither accident nor artifice. To the artist, tranquillity is an embodied practice—a lens through which to consider the world and allow it the space and attention to resonate with us. The absence is the substance. The skin framed by the openings of Bloedjes’ colliers, the inviting vacancy of her vessel forms, the cool Dutch light filtering through paper-thin translucent porcelain, the architectural reliefs of two marble columns about to kiss each other—the frame elevates the painting. It is just as illuminating to look through Judith Bloedjes’ pieces as it is to look at them.

This snapshot captures the intensity of Judith’s performance Piëta Ronde at CODA Museum in 2008. The Poetic Ceramics exhibition this year is the most recent culmination of CODA’s ongoing relationship with the artist.

2021 31 ADVERTORIAL

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MJW PAPER

Poetic Ceramics: ‘Sometimes the hands come up with different ideas than the head.’ How do you view this relationship between your mind and body as you work? etween the head and the hands is the heart. The B love for beauty creates a dialogue between the head and the hands.

RS

I n your book, Poetic Ceramics, you recall the process of learning to throw precise cylinders under the strict guidance of your teacher, Mister H. Breuker, who would—rather ruthlessly it seems —slice each thrown cylinder in half to spot any inconsistencies. With the technical mastery that you have developed, do you find it challenging to leave room for mistakes?

This studio shot captures the artist's process of developing her custom celadon glazes, specially made for the cool Dutch light.

JB

RS

o you see a link between the performances you D choreograph around your ceramic pieces and the precise physical movement involved in the creation of the pieces themselves?

JB

es, choreography is about forms. You can have Y dancers move angularly, but also fluidly, or in harmony, or thrusting upwards, or low to the ground.

For me, it is the same, in essence. Whether I make a choreography for a dance or a piece of jewellery or a wall object, it is all about the harmony of the entire work.

I love your quote included in the statement for

A view of the artist’s 2020 sculptural installation at EDUARD Leiden.

RS

I think it is important that my work shows that it is handmade. All the porcelain pieces are unique, shaped by hand, and all the silver has passed through my hands,w in my workshop. It is not production work and I want you to see that.

Sometimes I get an assignment for reproduction work and then the conversation between the head and the hands doesn’t take place and I’m more of an enforcer, which I find difficult.

Good gold or silversmiths sometimes criticise my soldering. It could be tighter. But I find the fact that I ‘sculpt’ with silver charming; it makes you see that it is human work. Because porcelain is an isolator and takes heat away, I have to solder at a higher temperature than when you solder silver without porcelain in between. I also spend much longer on soldering because the porcelain needs to be heated and cooled down slowly; cold air frightens it and causes it to break. There is beauty in craftsmanship, human work and imperfection.

RS

I often feel alienated by the stark monumentality of minimal artworks by artists such as Sol LeWitt or Carl Andre. Your pieces borrow from the same minimal, utilitarian tradition, but feel imbued with warmth and comfort. How do you achieve this sense of intimacy?

JB

I feel the same way. I feel very flattered to be compared to these great artists, however, their work is a bit cool in appearance and is often very geometric. In my work, there is certainly an organic, warm element to the ‘frame’ formed by the lines of silver and the relief of the porcelain curves.

I once calculated that the proportions of my work corresponded to the golden ratio, the harmonious proportions achieved through ‘the power of limits.’ I think this ‘sense of intimacy’ that you describe as warmth and comfort has something to do with those familiar proportions, although I have not intentionally used those calculations for a long time—now it is more of a subconscious need for balance.

JB

I like the infinity of the circle and the earthiness of the material, but if I were to end up on a deserted island with no porcelain commodities, I think I would still carve the circle from stone or turn it from wood, whichever material was available.

RS

lmost all of your pieces include an inner, hollow A orifice so that even your flattened circles are vessel-like. What is the significance of this central opening?

JB

hen I first began working with porcelain jewellery, W I saw the circle as a frame and created openings to make the skin visible. In traditional jewellery, the diamond or the ruby gets the leading role, but with the openings I sculpt, the focus is on the skin of the wearer or the textile of their clothing. It is as if the jewellery says ‘see me!’ Just as a good frame makes you look at the painting and creates an interior and exterior space, elevating the work, I aim to do the same with my jewellery.

RS

hat can tranquil objects offer us in our hectic W global context?

JB

breath of fresh air. Peace, quiet and allowing A the balance of the object to resonate with us so that we can experience balance internally.

This 2018 brooch created from porcelain, silver and stainless steel is now in the collection of CODA Museum. A comprehensive archive of Bloedjes' works, including this piece, can be found in her book Poetic Ceramics.

JUDITH BLOEDJES (JB) I decided to show the tests and the sketches because, apart from being an artist, I am also a craftswoman. I make everything myself in my studio and prefer to control the whole process. I make my own glazes—the glossy glass layers over the porcelain—which are composed of raw materials based on recipes I developed through a chemical process. I do this so that I can bring out the right transparency and nuances of whiteness. I think that this process, represented by tests and recipes, is interesting for the viewer to see, a kind of peek behind the scenes.

JB

circle derive from the process, or does the process lend itself to the expression of an existing appreciation?

This seemingly weightless, delicate Limoges porcelain mobile was created in 2015 for Dutch Design Hotel Artemis in Amsterdam. As each halo floats in the wind, it frames scenes of daily life in the hotel as if they were paintings.

REBECCA SCHENA (RS) We are very excited to see your exhibition Poetic Ceramics at CODA Apeldoorn. Can you walk me through the process of pairing completed ceramic pieces with ‘in-progress’ sketches and material experiments for the exhibition?

Poetic Ceramics is on view at CODA Apeldoorn from 28 February — 20 June 2021.

Discover more about the exhibition and purchase tickets at coda-apeldoorn.nl/judithbloedjes.

RS

I f the pottery wheel did not innately create circles and cylinders, do you think that the circle would have come to be as central to your work as it is?

Does your appreciation of the symbolism of the

Judith Bloedjes’ book, Poetic Ceramics, will be available at CODA Winkel while the exhibition is on view. Discover more about Judith Bloedjes' work and process at www.judithbloedjes.nl

Pieta Ronde, Image by Angela Stouten

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COLD SWEAT

José Aurélio with Torques XI, 2011. Torque (silver and found ivory and horn) 30 x 24 x 12 cm. Photos: Jorge Ricardo

1st Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial

In March of 2020, contemporary jewellery artists Cristina Filipe and Kadri Mälk found themselves in Munich, watching the pandemic unravel before their eyes. As they witnessed the social shift towards widespread fear and uncertainty, they came to view the pandemic as a springboard for meaningful conversations around adornment as a means of physical and spiritual protection. In those conversations, continued from the distance between Portugal and Estonia, Kadri Mälk christened Suor Frio

(Cold Sweat) as the title of the 1st Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial. The Biennial, which is scheduled to run primarily from 16–19 September 2021—with one main show opening in July and some events running until 20 November—is designed to reflect the remarkable aspects of jewellery’s history and the way protective adornment continues to reverberate in the 21st century.

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The Biennial is the brainchild of the Portuguese Contem­porary Jewellery Association (PIN) organised by Cristina Filipe, Marta Costa Reis, Isa Duarte Ribeiro and Luís Torres, along with other PIN members, namely the honorary Madalena Braz Teixeira and Gonçalo Vasconcelos e Sousa of the scientific committee. The Biennial’s extensive programming includes talks, meetings, masterclasses and exhibitions at several key museums and galleries—all revolving around subjects of the body, fear and protection.

‘What comes from that is a link to an object, to the memories of an object—be it considered divine, blessed, or magical.’

José Aurélio, Until the End of the World, 1963 Wedding rings of José Aurélio and Alice Aurélio (gold engraved). Photo: Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro

The central theme of the Biennial emerged from a March 2020 exhibition project by PIN and MUDE (Museu do Design e da Moda / Museum of Design and Fashion), dedicated to protective jewellery objects for the 21st century. A selection of those same works among others will be presented at the Biennial in a core exhibition in partnership with MUDE, Museu de São Roque (Sacred Art Collection) and the Museu da Farmácia (Pharmacy Museum). Museu de São Roque and Museu da Farmácia will exhibit contemporary works in dialogue with pieces from its collection, namely reliquaries, and bezoar stones respectively. Cristina Filipe invited the Jesuit priest João Norton de Matos SJ to co-curate the show and Fernando Brizio to design the exhibition.

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Precious Crown, c. 1948. Gold, silver, c. 2680 stones and 313 pearls from jewellery donated to the Virgin as a thanksgiving for her protection to the country during World War II. In 1984 the projectile that shot Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, it was integrated into the crown, as a relic of contact.

Height: 24 cm, maximum Ø: c. 15 cm. Shrine of Fatima Archive

The Biennial’s general curator, Cristina Filipe, comments: In the face of fear and a threat that is currently all over the world, how do we connect to the objects that give us the feeling of protection? What comes from that is a link to an object, to the memories of an object—be it considered divine, blessed, or magical. A lot of people are thinking about this right now—connecting fear, body and the material world through jewellery with this focus, or through amulets to give confidence to the wearer. Fear is not new, but the challenge today is to bring to the table the way people deal with this feeling in their lives; the context being not only the pandemic. By bringing different artists, researchers and thinkers that talk about this experience in totally different ways, we want something personal and something human to be revealed.

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believed that it was Our Lady of Fatima who protected the country. Later, in the 1980s, the projectile aimed at Pope John Paul II was offered as a contact relic to the Shrine, who ordered local jewellery makers to integrate it into the Crown. Upon receiving the order, the jewellers realised there was already a spot in the Crown’s structure with precisely the same diameter as the projectile, making it easy to mount it in the centre of the Crown. The Crown, therefore, became a reliquary for this projectile —an element touched by Saint John Paul II. Israeli jewellery artist Deganit Stern Schocken is a contemporary practitioner whose work enters into dialogue with such historical reliquaries. Her practice of creating peace-promoting artistic interventions from found objects and ready-mades from the Palestine-Israel border (Kalandia military checkpoint) is very much connected to the traditional practice of creating protective reliquary amalgamations such as those at the Museu de São Roque where is going to be on display.

Likewise, Norwegian artist Nanna Melland's necklace 687 Years was selected to reflect on protection. A long iron chain gathers a diverse set of intrauterine devices (IUDs) used by countless women in different periods to prevent pregnancy and collected by the artist with the support of several doctors and institutions. These small plastic objects, with their copper spirals, bear witness to the many challenges concerning human procreation throughout history and reference the talismans used to protect and promote fertility across cultures.

MUDE will also present at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA) an Anthological Exhibition of jewellery created by renowned Portuguese sculptor José Aurélio, curated by the art historian Laura Castro and designed by Filipe Alarcão. To attract collectors and the general public, the SNBA will also host a Jewellery Room with several international galleries specialising in contemporary jewellery such as S O, Viceversa, Door and Alice Floriano.

For instance, the Precious Crown of Our Lady of Fatima will be displayed for two days in October at the Igreja de São Roque as part of the Cold Sweat exhibition.

Accompanying this historic object will be a colloquium on the history of the Precious Crown with several guest experts, namely Marco Daniel Duarte, the director of the Shrine and Museum of Fatima; the gemmologist Rui Galopim de Carvalho, who has intensely studied the three thousand stones and pearls integrated into the crown; and Jorge Van Zeller the director of Casa Leitão & Irmão, the jewellery house who made the crown in the 1940s moderated by the museologist Madalena Braz Teixeira.

The Precious Crown and its place of exhibition, the Igreja de São Roque, have deep connections to our need for protection in our current times. The church itself was conceived for the Black Plague pandemic and was used as a shelter. The Crown was made out of several jewellery pieces donated to the Shrine of Fatima by a group of women after the Second World War, to give thanks to Portugal. Portugal had been protected by the government’s decision not to get involved in Second World War, but the women

Deganit Stern Schocken, Kalandia Checkpoint, 2009 Neck Piece (Readymade smached cans found at Kalandia military checkpoint, silver and 32 diamonds) 14.5 x 18.5 cm. Photo: Uri Grun

One of the Biennial’s primary goals is to create dialogue through time—to showcase significant historic pieces with rich references while drawing from the work of contemporary practitioners to highlight socio-political issues.

Manuela Sousa, 2020, 2020

2.5 x 1.5 x 3.5 cm. Photo: Ricardo Bravo

Brooch (silver and blue ink)

Zélia Nobre, Stay Home, 2020

Typhaine Le Monnier, Visor, 2020 Necklace (steel, paint and acetate) Ø20 x 30 x 1 cm. Photo: Teresa Santos

The artists in lockdown project features the works of Tereza Seabra, Catarina Silva, Manuela Sousa, Dulce Ferraz, Ana Albuquerque, Zélia Nobre, Filomeno, Lúcia Abdenur, Márcia Cirne, Paula Castro, Inês Nunes, Teresa Dantas, Diana Silva, Marília Maria Mira, Carla Castiajo, Pedro Sequeira, Typhaine le Monnier, among many others. Catarina Silva’s Apotropaic Amulet necklace was made with mirrors, glass beads, bone and cotton braid during the lockdown project, and also continues the practice of searching among past amuletic or talismanic rituals for inspiration when creating objects of protection for the 21st century. Under fear of death, amidst the simultaneous repulsion and attraction of the unknown, something magical appears.

Object (wood, paper and nitrile glove)

Cristina Filipe chose to present this 2006-2008 necklace, which is part of the collection of the Nordenfjeldske Museum in Norway, as a diptych next to a selection of Foundling Tokens from the Historical Archive of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (SCML). The tokens would have been folded into swaddles by families who left their children in the Foundling Wheel of Lisbon between 16th and 19th century at SCML; a rotating door-like device that protected the anonymity and dignity of parents who couldn’t raise their child. They would place the child into the wheel and turn it, safely surrendering their child into the care of the orphanage. The tokens mostly consist of a note in which the parent recorded information regarding the child’s identity. Unsurprisingly, these objects were often jewellery pieces—elements of talismans, charms broken in two with hopes of meeting again and proving the relation. These artefacts will be shown in Cold Sweat alongside other works that reflect the body, fear and protection, such as the ones made during the lockdown project.

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31 x 20.5 x 3 cm. Photo: Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro

Nanna Melland, 687 Years, 2006-2008 Necklace (plastic, copper and iron) 71 x 17 cm. Photo: Mirei Takeuchi

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Paying tribute to death, Manuela Sousa created an archive with the names of people who have died during the pandemic, utilising a ready-made protective nitrile glove framed in a pile of sheets, where she eternalises the list, almost as a poem. This protective glove, as a relic of contemporary times, dialogues with Visor by Typhaine Le Monnier, a re­designed face-shield-turned-neckpiece that transforms a newly common­place protective item into a memorial for the tragic circumstances that made it so commonplace.

Catarina Silva, Apotropaic Amulet, 2020 Necklace (mirrors, glass beads, bone and cotton braid) 45 x 15.5 x 1 cm. Photo: Pedro Sequeira

The Museu da Farmácia, another partner institution, has a beautiful collection of historical protective objects that demonstrate how different countries and cultures have dealt with health and protection will launch few artists in context. Reflecting on contemporary wellness culture, Switzerland-based jewellery artist Christoph Zellweger is developing a Cabinet of Risks & Chances, a new work that integrates jewellery elements related to supplements, vitamins and ‘remedies or superfluous stuff, almost invisible substances that are designed to change our lives.’. Meanwhile, Sweden-based artist Agnieszka Knap will present a new development of her performative project Dr. Knap, Qualified Jewellery Artist.

These are just a few examples of how the Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial aims to provoke a real debate about the body, fear and protection in different contexts: philosophical, scientific and artistic. They look forward to producing content and encouraging us to consider the roles of jewellery beyond that of a showpiece. The Biennial is a rigorous two-year journey of reflection into subjects that illuminate moments in history as they relate to our present, spark debate and prove that art and artists play an integral role in helping us to understand our world and our place within it.

The Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial urges us to ponder the complex moment we are all living through and encourages us to take a closer look at jewellery history-to make connections with other subjects, to cultivate contemporary jewellery by creating new settings for exhibitions and to promote meaningful exchanges between researchers, curators, artists and students, as well as the Portuguese and international public.

The Biennial is inspired by the concept of what we feel we need to use as protection—a kind of object, a kind of jewellery—but expands also into the realms of what fear is, what protection is, what the body is. -concludes the artistic director Marta Costa Reis.

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Christoph Zellweger, Drawing for Cabinet of Risks & Chances to be displayed at the Cold Sweat exhibition at Museu da Farmácia, Lisbon

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Agnieska Knap, Dr. Knap, Qualified Jewellery Artist Performance it will take place at Cold Sweat exhibition at Museu da Farmácia on the day of the official opening of the Lisbon Biennial

‘Under fear of death, amidst the simultaneous repulsion and attraction of the unknown, something magical appears.’

COLLOQUIUM BODY FEAR AND PROTECTION in partnership with

OTHER EXHIBITIONS AT THE BIENNIAL: Local galleries—Brotéria,

SCHOOLS ENCOUNTERS EXHIBITIONS: The Jewellery Department

the Research Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts at the School

Sá da Costa, Reverso, Teresa Lacerda and Tereza Seabra—and the Romanian

of Ar.Co–Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual (Ar.Co) in Lisbon will

of Arts - Catholic University of Portugal, invites twelve international

Cultural Institute in Lisbon in partnership with the Assamblage Association

develop a project based on the Biennial’s theme and present an exhibition of

researchers from different fields to debate the central topics of the Biennial

will present various international solo and group exhibitions and promote

results. This project is a collaboration between eight international schools

in three days of lectures. The director of MUDE, Bárbara Coutinho, Dutch

talks and guided visits. They will include work from around the world by

including the Hochschule für Kunst und Design Halle at Burg Giebichenstein,

art historian Liesbeth den Besten and Brasilian researcher Ana Paula de

groups such as õhuloss from Estonia, Broca from BraziI, a Collective from

Central Saint Martins, École Nationale Supérieur d'Árts from Limoges, Eesti

Campos will reflect on Body, moderated by the painter João Paulo Queiroz.

Colombia curated by Natalia Olarte and Paula Perez, and artists as Ruudt

Kunstiakadeemia, Lucerne School of Art and Design, PXL-MAD School

The researcher Rosa M. Mota will talk about Fear through a reflection on

Peters with a solo, Bernhard Schobinger, Iris Eichenberg, Eija Mustonen,

of Arts and Saint Lucas School of Arts Antwerpen. The Goldsmithing

traditional Portuguese jewellery artefacts, with the theological viewpoint

David Bielander, Helenna Lehtinen, Volker Atrops, Takayoshi Terajima and

Department at the Escola Artística António Arroio in Lisbon, will also join

of João Norton de Matos SJ and the art historian perspective of Alena

Rebekah Frank are just a few in other group shows.

this project with Brazilian jewellery school Atelier Mourão. Collectively,

Alexandrova, moderated by the artist Kadri Mälk. Denis Bruna from MAD in

these schools will meet to share ideas and teaching experiences.

Paris will talk about Protection with the director of the Museu da Farmácia, João Neto and the art historian Gonçalo Vasconcelos e Sousa, moderated by the V&A museum curator Kirstin Kennedy. It will take place at Brotéria the

MASTERCLASSES: In the week before the Biennial’s official opening, the

beautiful Jesuit cultural center in the heart of Lisbon next door to the church

masterclasses Fear and Protection by professors Christoph Zellweger and

and museum of São Roque.

Caroline Broadhead will be held at Ar.Co. Applications open until 1 April. Selection of participants till 15 of April.

Early Bird Registration until 1 May at www.jewellerybiennial.pin.pt/en

Biennial full programme at jewellerybiennial.pin.pt/en

Registrations till 1 May. More info at: www.jewellerybiennial.pin.pt/en

GEM Z 30.10 — 28.11.2021 GEM Z is supported by:

Het Nieuwe Instituut Museumpark 25 Rotterdam, The Netherlands

ATELIER FRANK VERKADE - DAVID BIELANDER - GIJS BAKKER MIRIAM VAN ECK - WILLEMIJN DE GREEF - ANONIEM

Under the name of Sieradenmuze, a growing network of Dutch museums with a unique jewellery collection are collaborating to permanently present these collections online. As Sieradenmuze, they aim to connect a growing amount of jewellery collections and present them as a source of inspiration for jewellery lovers,professionals and fashionistas. Sieradenmuze is part of Modemuze, an online platform for museums with fashion and costumecollections. WWW.SIERADENMUZE.NL

Project LOVE is supported by Erwin and Gisela Steiner Foundation, Munich, Germany, and Current Obsession Magazine, Amsterdam, The Netherlands *The remaining pendants are for sale on www.miamaljojoki.com 5€ per each sale will be donated to Free Food Kitchen @freefoodkitchen

Project LOVE

by Mia Maljojoki

WHAT IS PROJECT LOVE? LOVE as a word is such a cliché, known and understood cross the world.

LOVE is a topic in most movies and songs…

THE NEXT STEPS WILL TELL YOU HOW:

We are spiritual beings having a human experience and all we want is to love and be loved.

#2 Post an image of your LOVE pendant on Instagram and tag @miamaljojoki @currentobsessionmag @munichjewelleryweek

Project LOVE produced 143 silver LOVE Pendants, 51 of which will be placed inside the package of Current Obsession x Munich Jewellery Week Paper and sent randomly around the globe.

143 = 1 = I, 4= LOVE, 3=YOU = I LOVE YOU

#3 During your time with your LOVE Pendant, please reflect on what is love for you. What does it mean? Share your thoughts by tagging @miamaljojoki

Project LOVE invites its random participants to investigate within themselves what is LOVE for them, and to practice no attachment.

#1 Congratulations! You have received a LOVE pendant - wear/carry/hang it where you see it everyday for one month.

#4 After one month, give your LOVE Pendant away (the choice is yours how you decide, to whom) #5 Please ask the next person receiving the LOVE Pendant to repeat steps #1-5, with gratitude and LOVE

CURRENT OBSESSION — MUNICH JEWELLERY WEEK 2021