Articles

AJF takes its responsibilities as a forum for contemporary art jewelry seriously. We commission various kinds of critically engaged writing about the field, including thematic articles on topics that unlock the history, present and future of contemporary art jewelry. In this section of our website, you’ll find a variety of voices who, whether they agree or disagree with each other and the reader, are united by their conviction that contemporary art jewelry is a practice worth arguing about.

25 March 2012

Metal Zero

Gabriel Craig

The ability of a material to embody and convey meaning is central to our understanding of culture and of the objects with which we surround ourselves. Metal is a natural and effortless container for meaning, more so than almost any other material. In Western culture, metal is the material receptacle for most highly charged emotions. It is so often that we commemorate through the use of metal that we are desensitized to its ability to actively convey meaning. more...

17 March 2012

Encounters With Authentic Personal Fantasies

Gabriel Craig

In distinctly different ways then, these artists give form to their fantasies. What is curious is that each artist has executed his or her work on a scale that subjugates the body, rendering it merely the site of the accessory. The scale of these works also allows the artists to sublimate the function of the wearable objects in favor of their imaginative and authentic declaration. The predominance of a fantastical form language – that circumvents cultural convention – allows the sexual allusions of this work to be made more palatable, as if by making them imaginary propositions they are detached from reality. more...

04 February 2012

Collecting And Social Media

Julia Morris

Social media allowed the photographs taken at SOFA NY to take on a life of their own, warping the line between wearer and collector. Without it, the images alone lose what makes them special – the direct connection to the artist and the gallery. Without that, the images are static. The nature of this act of collecting is intriguingly ephemeral because it only exists within social media. more...

22 January 2012

Jewelry By Visual Artists in Italy: A Critical Review

Maria Cristina Bergesio

Italy is much more reluctant to allow jewelry the possibility of being a free creative expression, free to develop and interpret the spirit of the moment. In Italy, proposing jewelry as a creative medium of expression provokes stonewalling: the jewelry world doesn’t consider it jewelry and the art world doesn’t recognize its creative research value. more...

16 November 2011

Jacqueline Mina and the Problem of Contemporary Jewelry in Great Britain

Amanda Game

The response from informed and new viewers to Jacqueline Mina's 2011 exhibition was one of surprise and delight. Here was the art of gold at its most accomplished: expressive, sensuous jewels, understated (no Bond Street glitter here) yet commanding. Museum curators expressed a deepened understanding of her particular achievements. There were three loans from the V & A on show and a new work was acquired for the Alice and Louise Koch ring collection in Geneva. Other new private commissions and acquisitions have followed. more...

09 October 2011

For People Who Are Slightly Mad': American Modernist Jewelry

Jeannine Falino

The title of this talk was taken from the irrepressible Sam Kramer. His early Greenwich Village gallery was the center of activities both surrealistic and fun and he advertised his work as suitable for people who are ‘slightly mad.’ Kramer briefly studied jewelry with Glen Lukens in California. After a few years of travel, when he learned about gemology and Navajo culture, Kramer opened his gallery on Eighth Street in New York. From the start he worked with such unconventional materials as geodes and taxidermy eyes, used silver in a drip fashion and favored oddly compelling anthropomorphic and erotic shapes. All were calculated to startle and attract customers. more...

22 April 2011

The Mystery of Contemporary Jewelry in India

Kevin Murray

While the contemporary jewelry on display originated from all the world regions, India itself was represented exclusively with tribal jewelry. Elsewhere in Asia, I was pleased to find a bold new generation of contemporary jewelers emerging from countries like Indonesia and Thailand. The traditional Indian pieces were quite stunning works in silver that certainly commanded their place, but it did raise the question: Does Indian contemporary jewelry exist? Surely it must. Maybe our concept of contemporary jewelry is too limited. more...

19 March 2011

Loaded

Jillian Moore

Maybe it’s tempting to try to exploit the immediate dissonance caused by ‘gun as ornament,’ but to what effect? Popular culture is not known for being particularly considerate when it comes to appropriation. I told myself the artists in my community were sensitive to this. Maybe Etsy had let me down, but surely those artists in the art jewelry community who were appropriating the symbols of weaponry were doing so not just because guns were ‘in,’ but for the sake of subversion. Taking the piss out of guns I can handle. more...