Link - arnoldsche

To Jim, my love and support for so many years,
and to Vincent, Charlotte and Jasper, my most ­precious jewels.
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Contents
6
Introduction
17
I. The Meaning of Jewellery
33
II. A Short History of Jewellery and Photography
46
III. Beyond the Showcase
60
IV. Reading Jewellery
106
V. On the Fringe
125
VI. The Body
141
VII. Jewellery and Ornament
158
VIII. Jewellery and Tradition
207
IX. Collecting Jewellery
221
Museums
226
Galleries
227
Websites
229
Index
237
Acknowledgements
About the author
238
Photo credits
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6
Introduction
This book has been a long time in the making. It started as a simple idea to compile differ­
ent lectures into book form, complete it with images and to publish it. However while
starting to rewrite these lectures, new ones emerged, and inevitably the urge came to write
about other aspects of jewellery that I hadn’t lectured on before. My aim was not to write
an academic book on jewellery, but rather a readable one that reflects on current tenden­
cies within contemporary jewellery. Therefore the book is dependent on examples, many
of which have been reproduced, while others have just been described. I think it is import­
ant to mention the fact that I have seen the majority of these examples in reality. After all,
images can be misleading, particularly with jewellery, where you cannot see the measure­
ments, or feel and hear the materiality – characteristics which are so important in relation
with the body and wearing. Philippe van Cauteren, the artistic director of S.M.A.K. in
Ghent, Belgium, in an open letter (dated April 2010) to sculptor Henk Delabie expressed
his ideas about the mendacity of the image of an artwork in publications. He thinks that
it ‘… can hardly be called a document. It is flimsy, a two-dimensional archaeological “dis­
covery” of something that does not exist the way we perceive it.’ With good reason, he talks
about a ‘second-hand way’ of getting to know art works.1 Unfortunately that is all I can offer
the reader in this book: an indirect introduction to pieces of jewellery or works of art
through images and my interpretation of them.
A person who is engaged in contemporary jewellery, like me, has to explain an awful
lot. For instance, that you are not a maker (‘no, I did not make this brooch, I bought it in a
gallery’), or that one can indeed be professionally involved with jewellery as an art histor­
ian, or that there exists another type of jewellery rather than the regular stuff most people
wear. You have to explain that there are jewellers across the world, graduated from art
academies, who create this other kind of jewellery. And how their work differs from com­
mercial or precious jewellery because it is an artistic expression, and that its value is not
determined on the material it is made of. You then explain that the history of this kind of
jewellery is rather recent, but that there are specialised galleries, private collectors and
museum collections. That fairs are organised, competitions are held and books are pub­
lished, but that it is still a rather unknown field. There is nothing wrong with explaining
but sometimes you become weary of it. Why is the subject so out of reach? Why is it seen
as something trivial? Why do museums and universities still hold on to age-old hierarch­ical
distinctions between the fine and applied arts?
My own history with jewellery started in 1980. As a young history of art student at
the University of Amsterdam, I had developed a chief interest in modern and contemporary
architecture. However, in December 1980 there was an article in my daily newspaper under
the heading ‘The New Jewellery Art Wants to Give Shape to an Idea’.2 It was about Paul
Derrez, who had just won the first Françoise van den Bosch Prize, and his Galerie Ra in
Amsterdam. This was the first article about jewellery in a newspaper that I had ever seen
or read. Up until that very day, jewellery had never attracted my attention, apart from
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when I went through a phase of wearing several silver rings on both hands, as youngsters
used to do in those days. The matter discussed in the article intrigued me, even though I
hadn’t the slightest idea about what this kind of jewellery would be like. But the article was
cut out (I still have it in my archive) and put away. I didn’t think about jewellery anymore
until one of our teachers at university, the highly acclaimed De Stijl specialist Professor
Hans Jaffé, assigned his seminar students the task of researching the relationship between
fine and applied arts – not from the books but by ‘fieldwork’. So he ordered us to visit gal­
leries and to look with our own eyes. Galerie Ra and its artists turned out to be a fascinating
starting point for my investigation, and a few years later, in 1985, I wrote my thesis:
‘Jewellery Design and Fine Art: Connections Between Jewellery Design and Geometrical
Abstract and Conceptual Art in the Netherlands, 1967 to 1980.’ In the 100-page-long study
I interpreted the developments in Dutch jewellery in the second half of the 1960s and the
beginning of the 1970s as a process of emancipation and democratisation, similar to tenden­
cies in the other arts, applied arts and society. I found that there were direct connections
between jewellers and fine artists around 1970. And I concluded that both approaches – the
geometrical abstract and the conceptual – were the arteries that nourished Dutch jewellery
design. In 1985/86, I had the opportunity to create an exhibition on the subject of my thesis
in the Van Reekum Museum in Apeldoorn. The exhibition Sieraden: vorm en idee [Jewellery:
Form and Idea] also involved contemporary jewellery from other countries. This marked
the beginning of my life-long fascination with jewellery.
It is clear to me that this book could do with the subtitle ‘from a Dutch perspective’,
as I am fully aware that my personal and cultural background has influenced my take on
things. The fact that I was born and grew up in a particular part of the world and in a
particular time in history is my luck and my limitation. I grew up in a period of affluence
in the capital of one of the richest countries in the Western world, where things were mine
for the taking; I did not need to search for art or contemporary jewellery, for a museum or
a jewellery gallery, they were just there. It took me quite some time before I learned that
there was also interesting new jewellery made outside of Europe in the United States,
Australia and New Zealand. While I did not actually witness the first important manifesta­
tions of new jewellery in Holland at the end of the 1960s, having been just a child at that
time, I was nevertheless raised in the same atmosphere of cultural and social awareness
that gave way to this movement.
Although I have tried to be international in scope with respect to this book, people
from the United States, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia may have trouble
with my Eurocentric approach; people from Eastern and southern Europe may chide me
for my Western European orientation; while people from Germany, Austria or Italy may
reproach me for being directed too much towards the Netherlands. And they are all within
their right to do so.
In 1985, Peter Dormer and Ralph Turner coined the notion ‘the New Jewelry’.3 Terms
can be complicated and, especially if they are used too strictly, tend to be rather more
limiting than explanatory. In some literature it may seem as if the New Jewelry was a
movement with clear aims, which in fact it was not. All the same, I think it is a nice concept
and I like to use it at times, because it reflects so well a certain mentality prevalent around
1968: the deep-rooted conviction that everything was changeable and should change, and
a trust in the future that seems rather naive from today’s perspective. The New Jewelry is
not so much a style as it is a loose, international and vital tendency that breathed new life
into jewellery. This happened in different places around the world – almost simultaneously
– but under different conditions and with different results.4 In fact, the differences between
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Beyon d t he showc a se
51
52 a
52 b
51 Iris Eichenberg, body objects Wollen Harten (Woollen Hearts), 1994, wool, various dimensions. Private­­
collection. /// 52 a, b Christoph Zellweger, installation Ossarium Rosé, the National Museum of Natural
History, Lisbon, 2005. On Jewellery_END_280911.indd 86
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Be yon d t he showc a se
53
54 a
54 b
53 Hilde De Decker, installation Luster voor het oog (Lustre for the Eyes), 1998, silver-lustred ceramic objects,
tapestries, 700 × 800 × 60 cm. /// 54 a, b Hilde De Decker, growing exhibition Voor boer en tuinder (For the
Farmer and Market Gardener), Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, August–October 1999.
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r e a ding j ew el l ery
59
60
59 Paul Derrez, pendant Face, 1994, aluminium, resin, rubber, 7 × 6 × 2.5 cm. Collection Paul Derrez and Willem
Hoogstede, Amsterdam. Model: Paul Derrez. /// 60 Paul Derrez, pendant Dick, 1994, aluminium and rubber,
10 × 5 × 2.5 cm. Collection Paul Derrez and Willem Hoogstede, Amsterdam. Model: Paul Derrez.
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r e a ding j ew el l ery
61
62
61 Iris Eichenberg, brooch Gross-Schneen, 2004, 925 silver, leather, canvas, buttons, paper, h. 14 cm. The Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam. /// 62 Iris Eichenberg, brooch Deutschland ist ein Mädchen (Germany Is a Girl), 2004,
925 silver, leather, canvas, hardboard, h. 17 cm.
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67
68
67 Robert Smit, brooch Bello als Stilleven (Bello as a Still Life), 1992, 18 ct, 21 ct and 24 ct gold, 1 × 7.5 cm.
/// 68 Robert Smit, necklace Cwrt from Bryn-dafydd, 2004, gold, paint, 13.5 × 12 × 1 cm. The Helen Williams
Drutt English Collection, Philadelphia.
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69
70
71
72
69 Melanie Bilenker, brooch Still in Bed, 2004, gold, silver, ivory, resin, hair, 2.1 × 2.9 × 1 cm. /// 70 Melanie
Bilenker, brooch Undress, 2007, 18 ct gold, silver, ebony, pigment, hair, 4.2 × 4.7 × 1 cm. /// 71 Esther Knobel,
brooch, series: The Mind in the Hand, 2007, 925 silver, iron thread, 7 × 4 × 0.7 cm. /// 72 Esther Knobel, kit My
Grandmother Is Knitting Too, 2002, bear, pliers, brooches, thimble, enamel on copper, various dimensions. The Israel
Museum, Jerusalem.
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on t he fr inge
94
95
94 Naomi Filmer, object Ball in the Small of My Back for Alexander McQueen’s show El baile del toro retorsido
(spring/summer 2002), 2001, glass, silver plated copper (electroformed), 28 × 28 cm. /// 95 Hans Stofer,
installa­tion Walk the Line, Gallery SO, London, March 2010.
96 Hans Stofer, Off My Trolley, 2009, ART applied objects, mixed media, objects ranging from jewellery to water
jugs to disused shoes, 107 × 115 × 60 cm.
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on t he fr inge
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t he body
101
102
103
104
105
101 Gerd Rothmann, Sammlung: 107 Handflächen von Freunden und Bekannten (Collection: 107 Palms of Friends
and Aquaintances), 1982, moulds, pewter, each mould 0.6 – 0.7 cm. /// 102 Gerd Rothmann, necklace The
Balls: Von ihm für seine Freundin Rosetta (The Balls: From Him for His Girlfriend Rosetta), 1986, gold plated silver,
0.83 × 0.5 × 0.22 cm. /// 103 Bruno Martinazzi, brooch Backside, 1968, 925 silver, 3.1 × 3.8 × 1 cm. Private col­
lection. /// 104 Bruno Martinazzi, brooch Occhio, 1968, 20 ct gold, 18 ct white gold, 4 × 4.5 × 1 cm. Private
collection. /// 105 Bruno Martinazzi, bracelet Tempo, 1976, marmo rosso Levanto (red marble), 18 ct white
gold, 6.7 × 6.3 × 2.5 cm. Collection of the artist.
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t he body
106
107
106 Marjorie Schick, sculpture for the neck A Plane of Sticks, 1986, painted wood, riveted and painted,
68.58 × 91.44 × 15.24 cm. /// 107 Pierre Degen, wearable object Square Frame, 1982, wood, string, paper, cotton,
ca 135 × 135 cm.
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t he body
112
113
114
112 Frédéric Braham, Inner Beauty, 2005, ingestible homeopathic dilution of ruby, ruby, glass flask, nickel silver,
copper, polyester thermolac, silicone, polyester thermolac coated 925 silver, 13 cm. /// 113 Selina Woulfe, skin
brooch Silvergraft, 2010, sterling silver, surgical steel pin, 5 × 4 × 2.3 cm (variable). /// 114 Tiffany Parbs,
­photographic documentation of Cosmetic, 2006, stainless steel pins, digital print, 33 × 47 × 35 cm.
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t he body
115
116
115 Stefan Heuser, necklace The Egg, 2009, mother milk, gold. /// 116 Lauren Kalman, Lip Adornment, 2006,
inkjet print.
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