This is the third article in a series focused on artists whose work is adjacent to jewelry. For my purposes, jewelry-adjacent artists use material, techniques, or themes related to jewelry practices. The body is present in their work, not necessarily as the recipient of adornment, but in the importance of the physical body to their …
Margherita Potenza and photographer Daniele de Carolis recently met with Beppe Kessler, one of the most authentic and enduring voices in contemporary jewelry. Sitting in her beautiful Amsterdam studio, hidden behind the sturdy door of a former primary school and facing the placid waters of the Wittenburgervaart canal, Kessler talked about her latest projects, her …
Tone Vigeland, Neckpiece, 1985, steel, 14- to 18-karat gold, 120 mm inner diameter, 240 mm outer diameter, photo courtesy Galleri Riis, photo: Hans-Jørgen Abel The Norwegian jeweler Tone Vigeland is about to celebrate her 80th birthday, and the Design Museum in Munich has organized a fantastic show of her jewelry and published a catalog to …
Coco Sung at Galerie Biró Junior 2017 with her illuminated puzzle-installation in the background, photo: Axel Bussmeyer Coco Sung is a South Korean jewelry artist based in Berlin, Germany. With a background in Western painting, she creates jewelry through an intensive sketching process and integrates vibrant narratives into her work. In this interview, we talk …
Claire Kahn at work, photo: Peter Ogilvie I’ve been familiar with Claire Kahn’s sensuous, snake-like ropes of bead crochet for some time, but have come, only now, to marvel at the true beauty and technical accomplishment of these necklaces and bracelets. A designer, maker, and artist, Claire is a true generalist among the arts, working …
Cover of the book Findings, by Manon van Kouswijk, 2015, 30 x 24.5 x 1.7 cm, photo: artist Manon van Kouswijk has much to celebrate. Her exhibition In Order of Appearance has just opened at Amsterdam’s Galerie Ra, and her book, Findings (written by AJF editor Benjamin Lignel), has just been published. Van Kouswijk shares …
Ulo Florack, Smashed Investment on the Wall, 2002–2012, detail of an objectbox, acrylic/mixed media on wooden objectbox, casting investment, 14,8 x 17,5 x 5 cm, photo: artist Ulo Florack is a German jewelry artist and painter known for sculpting wildly fantastical creatures and characters in his jewelry. Florack studied under Professor Hermann Jünger and Professor Jörg Immendorff, and his work …
While trying to make the best i-photograph possible to illustrate this essay with Susan Sontag’s On Photography, my “summer read,” I was confronted with some questions: Did I “construct” or “disclose,” as Susan Sontag puts forward in her book? Was I trying to establish a relation between “the self and the world,” was the photograph …
Exhibition view, Ted Noten: Non Zone, 2015, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, photo: Liesbeth den Besten Ted Noten: Non Zone June 13–October 18, 2015 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands Two years ago, Ted Noten had his Framed exhibition at the Stedelijk museum’s-Hertogenbosch in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. When organizing this show, …
Master Metalsmith: Myra Mimlitsch-Gray September 12–November 30, 2014 National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, Tennessee, USA The text running down the side of the exhibition title wall reads like a group crit word bank à la 90s graphic design star David Carson. Prefixes dis-, re-, and up- are followed by their corresponding suffixes. A clutch of …
Sara Visbeek, the author’s partner, wearing the python for the first time, Galerie Rob Koudijs, February 5, 2012, photo: Miecke Oosterman At first glance, this python doesn’t look like a piece of jewelry at all. It is one big object, or rather, it’s a full-grown, life-size snake, dozing in a corner of the room. But …
Postmodernism is an ambitious and extensive exhibition. It is the latest in a loose series of exhibitions of major art movements, such as art nouveau and art deco, to be held at the V&A Museum. Like postmodernism itself, the exhibition is a complex and sometimes perhaps, a confusing experience. As an introduction, visitors read: ‘… of all the movements in art and design history, postmodernism is perhaps the most controversial’ and ‘with its unstable mix of theatrical and theoretical, the movement defies definition.’ This elusive and inconsistent subject is what the exhibition aims to examine.
