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International

05/05/2025

Have You Heard

Today in Art Jewelry

By Art Jewelry Forum

May 2025, Part 1

AJF is pleased to share the news about our community. Is something missing? The success of this compilation of compelling events, news, and items of interest to the jewelry community depends on your participation. If you’re a member of AJF at the Silver level or above, you can add news and ideas to this bi-monthly report by going here. If you aren’t a member, but would like to become one, join AJF here.

AJF LIVE WITH MELANIE EDDY: MAY 20, 2025, at 12 P.M. EST
Join us as Melanie Eddy walks us through her solo exhibition, Meditations on Form, at Bermuda National Gallery—the museum’s first jewelry exhibition. Museum leadership will discuss their approach to exhibiting a jewelry collection. Eddy will talk about what inspires her work and its connection to Bermuda. Eddy is involved in various aspects of the jewelry trade, from design and manufacture through critical writing and facilitating creative and professional development. From her London studio, she combines traditional and new approaches, creating geometric sculptural jewelry. The New York Times profiled Eddy in January 2025, in an article that explored Black British-based designers reshaping the world of fine jewelry. Free and open to all. Click here to register.

FEEL LIKE SEEING A JEWELRY SHOW?
Find listings from around the world on our dedicated exhibition page.

JEWELRY EVENTS
We have a dedicated page for them. Go here to see the list.

FROM OUR MEMBERS

MAD ABOUT JEWELRY: THROUGH MAY 7, 2025
The Museum of Arts and Design’s annual benefit awards and sale of contemporary jewelry celebrates its 25th year. This year’s milestone edition showcases extraordinary designs from 50 emerging and acclaimed international jewelry artists. The ultimate contemporary jewelry pop-up will offer collectors and jewelry enthusiasts the rare opportunity to meet and acquire pieces from the most innovative creators in the field. More.

CONSTELLATIONS: CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY AT THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART
This exhibition, November 9, 2025–May 3, 2026, will dazzle with nearly a century of creativity. More than 350 works will be on view, including treasures from Inge Asenbaum’s vaunted Galerie am Graben, captivating commissions by long-established luminaries and rising stars, and audacious new acquisitions. Constellations celebrates the enduring ingenuity of artists and honors the efforts of visionary collectors and activators who helped build the museum’s holdings. More info to come.

SEDIMENTED HISTORIES, AT GALERIE NOEL GUYOMARC’H
This collaborative project between Maria Phillips and Seth Papac is rooted in a long-standing relationship built on friendship, respect, and shared sensitivity. Inspired by observing minerals and natural sedimentation processes, their work explores how materials, memories, and experiences accumulate and take form over time. Through objects made from personal scraps, found fragments, and discarded materials, the artists give physical form to intimate and collective memory. Their approach evokes an emotional and relational geology, where accumulation becomes a creative and revealing act. More.

EXHIBITION: DEVOUR: JEWELRY BY SOPHIE HANAGARTH
Lips that encircle fingers, teeth that bite wrists. Chains that suggest whips and testicles. French kisses made of dark, hard steel. Hanagarth’s jewelry is characterized by ambiguity and a play on associations. With her work, she questions conventions, gives space to the power of irony, and questions decorative norms. Humor, provocation, the sensual, and the relationship between jewelry and the body permeate Hanagarth’s work. At the German Goldsmiths’ House in Hanau, June 29–December 2025. More.

PETALS, LEAVES, ROOTS, & SEEDS, AT PISTACHIOS
This nature-inspired exhibition highlights works by Liaung-Chung Yen, Judith Neugebauer, and Huiyu Chiu. Each artist has unparalleled craftsmanship, utilizing traditional metalsmithing techniques to create sculptural statement jewelry with botanical motifs. More.

COLLECTOR LOIS BOARDMAN HAS PASSED AWAY
Boardman donated 300+ pieces of contemporary art jewelry to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and 50 pieces from that collection were exhibited in Beyond Bling (October 2, 2016–February 5, 2017). It explored the use of nontraditional materials and techniques, the ways jewelry can communicate personal or political messages, and the medium’s potential to shock and delight.

JULIA TURNER RELEASES HER LATEST COLLAB
The jewelry stemming from Turner’s latest color collab with Heath Ceramics is on view in their showrooms, and available in their web shop as well as hers. More.

LEGNICA JEWELLERY FESTIVAL SILVER: GRAND OPENING MAY 9-10, 2025
What will Legnica surprise with this year? Legnica exhibitions have been showcasing the full spectrum of creative approaches in the field of art jewelry for years. Each year, more than a dozen shows presenting a huge diversity in terms of materials, techniques, and the issues raised by the artists attract a wide audience of jewelry, art, and design enthusiasts from Europe and the world. The upcoming edition of the event will be full of surprises and new features. This is ensured by the theme of the jewelry competition and the festival: WOW Effect! Full program here.

ONLINE ART HISTORY COURSE WITH GUEST SPEAKER UTE DECKER
Explore gold’s enduring allure across history, from ancient treasures to contemporary craft practices. Uncover its symbolic powers, cultural resonance, and endless malleability through the V&A collections, expert insights, and lively discussions. Guided by V&A jewelry and metal curators, leading metalworkers, and world-class experts, each session invites you to engage with the richness of the V&A’s collections and with gold artefacts of global significance. Speakers in this online art history course include the historian Beatriz Chadour-Sampson, and art jewelers Emefa Cole, Giovanni Corvaja, and Decker. At V&A Academy Online, Thursday, May 1, 2025–Thursday, June 5, 2025, 10:30–13:00. You may watch the lectures live or whenever suits you by viewing the recordings later. Info.

UAL: CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS BA JEWELLERY DESIGN AWARDS EVENT
This annual awards event celebrates the work of final-year students. Save the date: June 18, 2025, at 3:30 p.m. This will be a ticketed event; info available soon. More.

CALL FOR ENTRY: BJC GRADUATE SHOW
Since 2014, the Baltimore Jewelry Center has supported the contemporary jewelry and metals field through exhibitions and programming. Its second annual Graduate Show will highlight emerging jewelers and metalsmiths completing their formal education. This exhibition showcases recent graduates’ work, acting as both archive and spotlight for the field’s evolving voice. Applicants must have graduated in Fall 2024 or Spring 2025 with a BFA, MFA, or Certificate. Submitted work must have been created between 2023–2025 and be wearable or small sculpture (no larger than 12” in any dimension). Deadline: May 25, 2025. Info.

CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR RAM’S AWAKENING THE SENSES
While traditional museum etiquette expects visitors to observe from a distance, the Racine Art Museum’s 2025 community art show invites guests to break from convention by interacting with the art directly. Activating the senses beyond sight alone, museum-goers will make emotional—and physical—connections by getting up close and personal with pieces, exploring the galleries by feeling, trying on, adding to or subtracting from, listening to, or smelling works specifically created to awaken the senses. Artists are invited to submit work that promotes engagement in unexpected or unconventional ways. Deadline: May 17, 2025. Info.

CALL FOR ENTRY: JELO6 PROJECT
Are you a jewelry artist, ceramist, or creator of small sculptures? Showcase your talent at Nicosia, November 12–16, 2025! This is a great opportunity to present your work and connect with fellow artisans and art enthusiasts. Organized by Jelo6 Project Cyprus under the auspices of the Municipality of Nicosia, this event promises to be a vibrant celebration of contemporary art and craftsmanship. More info.

APPLY FOR THE SUMMER EDITION OF DISCOVER
It’s a platform for jewelers and jewelry brands to increase visibility and showcase their work to the global audience of NYC Jewelry Week. This season’s edition will be curated by Georgina Treviño, the contemporary artist and jeweler from Tijuana, Mexico, who’s based in San Diego, CA. Deadline: May 31, 2025. More.

PINS & POSTERS, THROUGH JUNE 15, 2025
Colorful, witty, brave, imaginative, radical, politically outspoken pins and posters protest the normalization of right-wing ideology. People wear pins in day-to-day life and hang posters in buildings and public spaces, and take them to demonstrations. Don’t underestimate the power of visibility in everyday culture. Everyone with the urge to participate in this exhibition was welcome to do so—a number of AJF members did so. Expect a fantastic range of angry to poetic works. At Front Room Studio Julia Walter, in Amsterdam. More.

RACHELLE THIEWES FEATURED IN SOLO EXHIBITION
The show will open May 30 at the at El Paso Museum of Art. More.

MEGHAN PATRICE RILEY TRUNK SHOW AT OMBRÉ
Celebrate Mother’s Day weekend! NYC artist and jeweler Meghan Patrice Riley will be at the gallery on Friday, May 9, from 4-6 p.m., and Saturday, May 10, 11-4 p.m. She will bring a huge assortment of her latest collection, including some one-of-a-kind pieces, and will help you select the perfect style. More.

BERNHARD SCHOBINGER PRESENTS KIMIAKI KAGEYAMA
At Galleria Antonella Villanova, May 17–July 19, 2025. For years, Schobinger has spent several months a year in Japan, teaching. The Japanese term Wabi-sabi references a vision of the world and of aesthetics based on acceptance of the impermanence of things and the beauty of their imperfection. This vision often underlies Schobinger’s art, so the gallery asked him to present the work of Kimiaki Kageyama, one of Japan’s most important master jewelers. More.

OTHER NEWS

KUNSTENNACHT 2025 JIRO KAMATA
Jiro Kamata’s work explores optical phenomena and the perception of value. By transforming found and sometimes used materials into jewelry, he creates objects that, through their interaction with reflection, light, and color, evoke an experience of memory. At Multiple, May 8–June 7. More.

AUTOR TAKES PLACE MAY 10–11, 2025
Unirea Shopping Center, in Bucharest, Romania, will transform into the epicenter of contemporary jewelry, hosting the 22nd edition of the international contemporary jewelry fair. This event brings together jewelry designers from across the globe, passionate collectors, and an informed audience—all within a space dedicated to artistic expression and design innovation. More.

BIJOUX DE FEMMES, AT MUSÉE DU BIJOU CENTEMPORAIN
Opening May 17, 2025, this show features 32 female jewelers—including Sophie Hanagarth, Mari Ishikawa, Einav Benzano, Cathy Chotard, Florence Lehmann, and Märta Mattsson—who pay tribute to women who have inspired or influenced their lives, whether artists, political figures, family members, or friends. Info.

SAY IT WITH LOVE EXHIBITION
Rings with a message. Work by Paul Adie, Karin Seufert, Tore Svensson, Erik Urbschat, Jorgé Manila, Karl Fritsch, Yotam Bahat, Into Niilo, Peter Vermandere, Madeli Viljoen, Patrick Malotki, Diederick Vanhovell, Benedikt Haener, Kim Buck, and Gésine Hackenberg. At Galerie Pont & Plas, through June 14, 2025. More.

PIECE OF PEACE EXHIBITION
At The WearHouse through May 17, 2025. More.

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