art history

Body Embellishment

Body Embellishment explores innovative artistic expression in the 21st-century international arenas of body extension, augmentation, and modification through jewelry, tattoos, nail art, and fashion.

Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty

Exhibition catalog for “Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty.” As Fuller marked its 50-year anniversary in 2019, it turned to gold to commemorate this milestone with “Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty” in its Stone and Barstow galleries. This invitational project explores the storied traditions, contemporary interpretations, skillful applications, and conceptual rigor of gold as an artistic …

Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty Read More »

Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography

The Museum of Arts and Design presented “Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography” in 2014. This groundbreaking exhibition was the first to examine the union of contemporary jewelry and the photographic image. The exhibition and its accompanying catalog demonstrated the creative possibilities that result from hybrid practices. Photography and jewelry each have their own histories, technical …

Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography Read More »

What Is Jewelry Really?

We create and wear jewelry because we do not want to feel alone. But “not wanting to feel alone” can mean different things to different people. The jewelry artist must have insight here. The artist needs to understand what jewelry really is in order to make successful choices about forms, materials, design elements, inspirations, techniques, …

What Is Jewelry Really? Read More »

Brosche or the jewelry without object of Manfred Nisslmüller

A case study of Austrian artist Manfred Nisslmüller’s work ‘Taschenrecorder’ (1984-1993, made in eight examples), highlighting the artist’s view of “jewelry as a disruption” using of critical, ironic, and subversive modes of art history.

Jewelry Design Composition: Playing With Building Blocks Called Design Elements

Jewelry making is a constructive process of expression. The language of expression begins with the idea of design elements. Design elements are the smallest meaningful units of design. Design elements function in a similar way as vowels and consonants in a language. They have form. They have meaning. They have expression. Some can stand alone, …

Jewelry Design Composition: Playing With Building Blocks Called Design Elements Read More »

Go For Baroque: Opulence and Excess in Contemporary Art

This text explores how theoretical concepts of opulence and excess are explored in contemporary art, especially jewelry. Images of several exhibited works are included. Focusing on artists from the United States and Western Europe, it offers a Western-based interdisciplinary perspective for thinking about what “baroque” could mean in a modern context. Jewelry forms the basis …

Go For Baroque: Opulence and Excess in Contemporary Art Read More »

Scroll to Top