Sarah Rhodes has been researching the role that practice plays in collaboration between designers and African grassroots craft producers, examining how craft and design practices can act as tools for communication and exchange. Exploring collaboration through making with two grassroots, Cape Town-based craft businesses—Imiso Ceramics and Kunye—a co-creation methodology for practice has developed, capitalizing on the differing […]
Bridging the Divide Read More »
Sponsored by Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Jewelry Forum In this talk, Mònica Gaspar uses the term “object-ography” (writing about objects) to describe her practice, which finds her curating around and researching on the encounters and “dis-encounters” between people and things in everyday life. She introduces the audience to some of the art jewelry,
An Evening with Mònica Gaspar at Cranbrook Read More »
Sponsored by California College of the Arts and The Rotasa Foundation Marginalized from mainstream culture, contemporary jewelers have started colonizing the spaces available to them to (re)define their practices and the field at large. In this joint lecture, Liesbeth den Besten and Benjamin Lignel, contributors to Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective, look at two facets of
Dissolve and Disseminate! Read More »
Contemporary jewelry is doing OK. It does not need another pat on the back in the form of a 300-page book of images. When taking on the task of editor in 2010, Damian Skinner decided to treat Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective as an opportunity to examine jewelry as a mature, fully developed practice. Rather than
This Is Not a Book (Part 2) Read More »
Contemporary jewelry is doing OK. It does not need another pat on the back in the form of a 300-page book of images. When taking on the task of editor in 2010, Damian Skinner decided to treat Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective as an opportunity to examine jewelry as a mature, fully developed practice. Rather than
This Is Not A Book (Part 1) Read More »
The contemporary jewelry field is much less resilient to the use of words and texts than its craft heritage would have us believe. Words help us define our practice and describe (or dress up) our things. In fact, words are what we use to help these things graduate to the status of cultural goods. They
Texts and Pretexts Read More »
What makes contemporary jewelry unique? What are the singular characteristics that distinguish these objects and practices from other forms of visual arts? One way to answer this is to consider the spaces in which contemporary jewelry circulates. It inhabits not only the walls and plinths of museums, but also the private spaces of collectors’ drawers
Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective: Pratt Read More »
What makes contemporary jewelry unique? What are the singular characteristics that distinguish these objects and practices from other forms of visual arts? One way to answer this is to consider the spaces in which contemporary jewelry circulates. It inhabits not only the walls and plinths of museums, but also the private spaces of collectors’ drawers
Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective: Renwick Read More »
This essay was first delivered as a talk at SOFA Chicago in November 2010. Watching, Looking, Learning ‘And viewers like you.’ The title of this talk was stolen from the PBS sign-off to most of their programs. They thank various corporations, foundations and individuals and then they thank ‘viewers like you.’ They are expressing gratitude
And Viewers Like You Read More »
This essay was first delivered on a panel ‘Touch in Contemporary Art’ at the College Art Association, Los Angeles, in 2009, through travel funds provided by the Society of North American Goldsmiths. The paper was further developed into a lecture and presented at SOFA Chicago in November 2009 and subsequently presented at University of El
Curatorial Conundrums: Exhibiting Contemporary Art Jewelry in a Museum Read More »
This essay was first delivered as a talk at the Going to Extremes SNAG conference in 2010 in Houston, Texas, on March 13, 2010. Aliyah Gold Amelia Toelke While thinking about these questions, I happened to mention them to gallerist Sienna Patti and we fell into a meaningful conversation about how one defines an emerging
At the Crossroads of Trends and Traditions: Emerging American Jewelry Artists Today Read More »
This essay was developed from the lecture ‘Holding Objects: What It Means to Wear Jewelry: The Psychoanalytic Mechanisms,’ presented at the Facets of Meaning symposium at Tacoma Art Museum, June 28, 2009. A version of the talk was also presented at SOFA NY in June 2010. Marcia Macdonald, If You Sit Still … You Can
Holding Objects: The Psychoanalytic Mechanisms of Wearing Jewelry Read More »
