January
28, 2008, 7:00pm-8:00pm,
Jewelry
Lecture by Andrea Wagner: Golden Clogs, Dutch Mountains at the
92nd Street Y
Join
Andrea Wagner, the curator of Golden Clogs, Dutch Mountains
Contemporary Jewelry, for a lecture about this extraordinary
exhibition and how it relates to the history of Dutch studio
jewelry. In the post-war era, Dutch studios have been at the
leading edge of contemporary or "avant-garde" jewelry.
Get an overview and learn about the future of Dutch jewelry
design.
$25
(Free to those who registered for the Artist-in-Residence Class
Mosaics with Eddie Dominguez, and $10 for university students
with ID)
Monday,
January 28, 7:00pm-8:00pm
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
Code T-AA3JT01-01
Register online here
Brief
biography
Andrea Wagner studied at the prestigious Gerrit Rietveld Academy
in Amsterdam herself. Based in Amsterdam, she is part of the
new generation of Dutch jewelry artists. She participates in
major exhibitions, including Munich's Schmuck, the international
SOFA Art Fairs and the upcoming Collect 2008 in London.
January
20 - February 17, 2008
Golden
Clogs, Dutch Mountains, touring exhibition of work by a young
generation of cutting-edge Dutch jewelry artists at Loupe Gallery,
Montclair, NJ
Golden Clogs, Dutch Mountains –
the title of this exhibition is full of contradictions, and
perhaps the work on show will contradict prevailing ideas about
Dutch jewellery as well. There is not a typical Dutch style
in jewelry today, as there was in the Sixties and Seventies
of the last century – the period when studio jewelry was
re-invented in Holland. I deliberately make use of this word
‘re-invented’ because studio jewelry existed already
since the post-war years when jewellers like Archibald Dumbar
and Chris Steenbergen decided to start working in their own
studio as independent artist-jewellers, making work for clients
as well as for themselves with the aim to show these in art
and craft galleries and exhibitions.
However,
since the end of the Sixties and in the Seventies Dutch jewelry
has really come alive. Jewelry designers such as Emmy van Leersum,
Gijs Bakker, Françoise van den Bosch and Marion Herbst
developed new ideas about the design, technology, concept and
meaning of jewelry. They were not alone, in Britain and Germany
young colleagues were captured by similar ideas and novelties.
In 1985 the British chronicler of contemporary jewelry Ralph
Turner, coined the term ‘The New Jewelry’, when
he published a book under this title. This designation is still
useful. We can still feel the swing, the energy and the flow
of this period in European jewelry if we see examples of it
today. There were differences though, between those European
countries where this ‘New Jewelry’ occurred. In
Britain colour, flexible materials and wearability were the
main issues, while in Germany the fusion of gold and new colourful
materials such as Perspex was investigated. In these days Dutch
jewelry was a matter of research rather than that of experimentation.
The epitome of restraint in design and aesthetics was found
in Holland, where a whole generation of young jewellery designers
became fervent followers of an abstract geometrical design approach
governed by a desire to break away from the golden standard
of craftsmanship and the old-fashioned romanticism that had
always been surrounding the profession of the noble goldsmith.
It was their aim to work as a designer, by developing pieces
of jewellery in series which started from certain well formulated
design principles such as rational interventions in industrial
materials like prefabricated aluminium or steel tubes, sheet
material, or Perspex. The ‘New Jewelry’ was in the
first place an emancipation movement, a way to find a new self-confidence
and a new identity within the broad perspective of crafts, design
and fine arts.
From
1969-1973 an important exhibition of Dutch jewelry travelled
through the United States. The title was Objects to Wear and
it showed the very early, rather ostentatious results of the
new movement in Dutch jewelry. The exhibition must have had
some impact in the States, because the abstract Dutch jewelry
was miles away from the American narrative jewelry. Since then
a lot has happened. The purist attitude and aesthetic has long
since been abandoned, but the will to research and to cross
borders has remained. Thanks to the developments of the 1960s
and 70s, the ‘jewellery climate’ in Holland is fertile
and stimulating, with excellent jewellery galleries, a highly
attractive jewellery education at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam
and governmental support for jewellery artists, curators and
even buyers.
The
imaginative title of this exhibition of Dutch jewellery from
the twenty-first century Golden Clogs, Dutch Mountains could
not have been invented thirty years ago. The imagery of the
title evokes a versatile land with something strange going on.
We don’t wear any clogs anymore, and they were never made
of gold, while our mountains are nothing more than soft rises
in the flat fields. Not only is the title indicative of something
strange going on, the group of participants is strange as well.
Of these 11 women only 5 are Dutch, the rest are German though
altogether dutchified. This raises the tricky question whether
there is something called ‘Dutch’, or if there is
something which might be denominated as a ‘Dutch identity’.
One thing may be clear, these young artists are not afraid of
experiments, they are all innovative and curious researchers.
They are using resin, porcelain, textiles, fur or glass without
restraint, as long as it serves their aim to tell a story, or
to support the content of the work. Dutch jewelry has a narrative
streak without necessarily being illustrative or figurative.
In a world which seems paralysed by numerous unsolvable threats,
in an accelerating society without securities, people tend to
attach to personal objects. Jewellery can have this function,
a piece of jewellery can be a desirable thing – not because
of its intrinsic, material preciousness but because of a preciousness
of a new order: time, care and meaning. Jewels are never inert
or mute, their appearance immediately raises narratives. Dutch
jewellery artists seem to be well aware of this. Although their
jewellery has decorative qualities, its beauty goes far beyond
that. Its beauty is in the imagery, and in the power to evoke
associations. Some of the artists, such as Gesine Hackenberg
and Manon van Kouswijk refer to daily objects and daily rituals.
Katja Prins and Jantje Fleischhut give a new meaning to mechanical
devices. Others, such as Francis Willemstijn, Iris Nieuwenburg,
Constanze Schreiber and Iris Eichenberg depict historical themes.
While for Andrea Wagner, Stephanie Jendis and Ineke Heerkens
it is the visual spectacle which invites to enter another world.
The jewels in this show have a very personal nature, and they
invite to be discovered, to be close with, to be worn.
Liesbeth
den Besten
Contact:
Gallery
Loupe for Contemporart Art Jewelry
6 Midland Avenue
Montrclair, NJ 07042
Tel.: 973-744-0061
Fax: 973-744-0062
contact@galleryloupe.com
website coming soon
