Ron Arad, Not Made By Hand, 2002, bracelet, polyamide, 75 x 100 mm (LE06)

Currently on display in Designers on Jewellery: Twelve Years of Jewellery Production from Chi ha paura . . .?

Production is a sensitive concept within contemporary jewelry practice. Standing between fine art on one side and design on the other, contemporary jewelry has tended to appeal to fine art’s love of the unique rather than design’s love of the many. Yet this conceptual manoeuvre is in many ways directly opposed to jewelry’s own history and traditions. As French jeweler Benjamin Lignel recently wrote in Metalsmith magazine:

Although contemporary studio jewelry persistently uses fine arts as a model in its quest for legitimacy, and has emulated its modes of distribution through galleries ever since it emerged in the 1960s as an independent genre, it continues to entertain an uneasy relationship to serial reproduction. While artists like Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol were happily blowing up the conventional dogma that set apart unique pieces from repeat production, contemporary jewelry artists only gingerly engaged in editions. Jewelers maintain that serial work and mechanical reproduction are antithetical to craft heritage, and that forgoing traditional techniques and uniqueness in favor of more disposable, machine-made products threatens the profession’s raison d’être, the specificity of its “voice.” For the most part, galleries agree, on the principle that if all else fails, making handcrafted one-offs will guarantee an artist recognition from a buying public that is ever ready to equate “original” with “artistic.” My naïve assumption that, if an object is good once, it will be good 20 times over, is what fuels this essay. My more seasoned conviction, that contemporary jewelry needs the visibility that editions would provide, also plays a part.

One of his points is that the idea of serial production as an anemic copy of the original only exists as long as we persist in seeing craft as a last stand against mediocrity in a society awash with the trashy results of the industrial revolution. As Lignel suggests, ‘When one approaches reproduction as its own media, exciting precisely because it belongs to, and reflects upon, industrial culture, the negative relationship that binds original and serial copy ceases to exist.’ Production jewelry, in other words, is less a victim of industrial processes and more a medium through which jewelers can engage with the issues of production, economy and distribution that are central to industrialized societies.

Most productive (excuse the pun) is the idea that serial reproduction provides an alternative model through which jewelry (and craft) might be theorised – a model that allows us to side-step the tyranny of the fine arts. Lignel writes:

Ultimately, the debate around reproduction is less about processes than territory: will contemporary jewelry lose its specificity by relinquishing craft? In their struggle to find recognition, contemporary jewelers seem to have made two assumptions: First, that contemporary jewelry should speak the language of craft; secondly, that its bid for artistic credibility is incompatible with “non-artistic” modes of production and distribution. Both assumptions set useless limits, and are equally useless as road maps: one is reductive, the other, reactionary. While craft is very much about process, I would argue that contemporary jewelry need not always be. Editions interact with a production world that is alien to craft, and allow us to tackle issues that may not be within the reach of “precious,” anvil-hewn, gallery-bound objects.

These issues are particularly relevant to countries where production jewelry has an established role in providing a living for the jeweler, where jewelers expect to live off their work. Without production jewelry, it would be impossible to survive solely from your jewelry practice. We have always recognised that there is a financial dimension to this kind of activity, but how much attention have we given to its theoretical possibilities? (To read Lignel’s essay, click here.)

If you happen to live in San Francisco, or are passing through the Bay area on Thursday 11 March 2010, you have the opportunity to take part in a discussion of these very issues. The San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design is presenting a panel discussion called Jewelry Designers/Jewelry Makers: Who’s Making It? in association with their current exhibition Designers on Jewelry: Twelve Years of Jewelry Production by Chi ha paura…?. Participants include David Cole, Sandra Enterline,  Mike and Maaike, and Julia Turner, and the event will be moderated by Marilyn da Silva. To find out more about the details of the event, click here.