Interviews

This month Gallery Loupe is celebrating a birthday date.  Both Thomas Gentille and Peter Skubic were born on August 11 and so the gallery has paired them for the show Birthday Boys.  I have separated the interviews into two parts, so each artist can have his say – as brief as they are. This is part 2.

Susan Cummins: Although you were born in Yugoslavia, you have spent most of your life in Austria. Someone once told me that Austrian jewelers believe in fairytales. Do you think that is true?

Peter Skubic: No, only when they go to Hanau where the brothers Grimm were born . . . said Helen Drutt.

You have taught at a number of schools. Can you give me an example of an assignment that really challenged your students?

I always challenge my students. It is central to my teaching.

Were you trained as a goldsmith?

I was never trained as a goldsmith. I learned it by myself. I was trained as an engraver in FACHSCHULE IN STEYR.

This month Gallery Loupe is celebrating a birthday date. Both Thomas Gentille and Peter Skubic were born on August 11 and so the gallery has paired them for the show Birthday Boys. In the contemporary jewelry world these two artists are well known, well collected and are respected for their pioneering work. Eileen David and Patti Bleicher, the owners of Loupe, said that they are interested in showing the work of historically significant artists to help put all the other jewelry they show in context from time to time. I have separated the interviews into two parts, so each artist can have his say – as brief as they are.

Susan Cummins: Thomas, you have a reputation as a perfectionist. Do you see yourself as such?

Thomas Gentille: No, I don’t.

Galerie Ra in Amsterdam was an early champion of contemporary jewelry. It was established in 1976 by Paul Derrez, a jeweler and legendary visionary. Paul continues to run his gallery and this month we catch an exhibition there of the work of Johanna Dahm. She is doing the same rings as she has for a long time but with Enhancements, which is the title of the show.

Susan Cummins: You have probably answered this question many times, so I have to request your patience, but you are known for making rings using a casting technique acquired from the African Ashanti and Indian Dokra. Can you please talk about that process?

Johanna Dahm: Compared to other lost-wax casting methods around the world, theirs is unique and genius. Both cultures, living so far apart, not even aware of each other, share a process aptly described as casting in a closed cycle. Yes, the wax model is lost after it has been encased in clay and melted out, yet is still there in its negative. This shell is joined with a layer of clay to the crucible containing the metal, looking like a Babushka. An old oil barrel serves as a furnace, like those of the Ashanti. I love the 1100-degree heat and the smell of glowing bright yellow coal. With long tongs the glowing forms are pulled out of the furnace and merely flipped upside down for casting. This is the closed cycle technique, everything mysteriously hidden to the eye, no separate melting and pouring of the metal. The most exciting part is cracking open the form. Has the piece been cast successfully, or is everything lost? This closed cycle process has great advantage, but as usual only if mastered. Lost and Found: The Ashanti Trail to Rings was thus the title of my first book.

Karl Fritsch, the prolific, original jeweler is having a show at Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger in Hochheim, a little town outside of Frankfurt, Germany. It is a beautiful space as you will see in the installation shots and contrasts beautifully with Karl’s ‘misshapen’ jewelry.

Susan Cummins: Gerd Rothmann wrote about the bowl you created for this show by saying: ‘Out of this bar of gold Karl Fritsch has wrought, using a heavy hammer in a somewhat disrespectful (if not brutal, or in any case quite unsubtle) way, a somewhat misshapen looking bowl. It would seem that he went about doing this with the express desire to shatter any professional notion of aesthetics: the manner in which he mistreated the precious and venerated material was admirably cheeky.’ Your approach is disquieting. Why do you work this way?

Karl Fritsch: If I answer that question I can tell you the story of my life, or I can say I don’t know. I think the text from Gerd gives a answer and it is my ultimate pleasure and reason to make work like that, if somebody can engage with it in the way Gerd does. No bullshit! The bit of text you quote is taken from a longer text. It might help to read the whole text as it gives some ideas about answers.

‘(First you have to imagine one kilogram of pure 24 carat gold: its weight; its golden yellow lustre; its softness. Merchants used to bite on gold coins, testing if the gold was genuine on the basis of the indentation made by their teeth.

Klimt02 is most famous in the jewelry community as a website where the full breath of the field is displayed. It is a fabulous resource, but it is also a gallery in Barcelona, Spain, started by Leo Caballero and Amador Bertomeu. This month they are featuring an exhibition by the indomitable New Zealand jeweler Lisa Walker.

Susan Cummins: You have received recognition through prizes like the 2010 Francoise van den Bosch award and your work has been collected by museums in New Zealand and Europe. You have certainly taken the lead in producing some of the most challenging contemporary jewelry this field has ever seen. What are you thinking?

Lisa Walker: Thank you! I’ll cut and paste that for my next book, like a show off. There’s often a fine line between showing off and informing people about what you do, (like Facebook, etc) or total overkill. It’s almost an uncomfortable experience to post and post and email and email about yourself, sort of hand over eyes and click. Anyway I haven’t really answered you. What am I thinking? In a sentence, I’m thinking about jewelry, about art, about materials, about ideas, about no ideas, about how far I can go that it still makes sense, about resonance, about love, about life, culture, about myself, about the world, politics, about that innate humanness and wonder in brilliant work, about what is good – and that will do for now.