Joyeros Argentinos is an organization ‘which unites creators of contemporary jewellery in Argentina, recovering and projecting the exceptional value of each creation and each creator, the collective values of the group and its identity, and of the interaction with those towards whom the jewels are directed: those who look at them, those who wear them’. Their exhibition, Kaleidoscope, features the work of 43 makers who have come together to represent Argentinean contemporary jewelry in a satellite exhibition to the Gray Area symposium. According to the exhibition invitation, Joyeros Argentinos are ‘Bringing closer, with their southern way of seeing, their wish and their will for achieving regional and international integration through their art’. (To find out more about Joyeros Argentinos, click here.)

Gabriela Horvat, Sin titulo necklace

This is very much within the spirit of the Gray Area symposium, which is taking place in Mexico City this week, and ‘stands as an endeavour to not only encourage the cultural exchange among jewellery makers from Latin America and Europe, but to additionally create an interdisciplinary frame of reference for contemporary jewellery and its practices within a truly multinational discourse’. (To learn more about Gray Area, click here.) Hence the stated desire that Kaleidoscope might achieve ‘regional and international integration’. Joyeros Argentinos are making a gamble for a seat at the international jewelry table, and playing a game in which the goal is to assert both difference and similarity – enough exotic character to make it worthwhile for the world to look, and enough evidence of being up-to-date with contemporary jewelry developments so the world understands what it sees. The goal is to be contemporary jewelry (global) from Argentina (local).

Viviana Carriquiry (bangle) and Victoria Biagiola, Sirena-transita suenos brooch

It is very hard to know how to respond to an exhibition like this, which in this context is an attempt to make a larger statement – to claim a place within an international discourse of jewelry. A viewer is faced, firstly, with the necessary work of understanding their own assumptions, identifying the rules and conventions that structure ‘international discourse’, and which are necessarily biased against Argentinean jewelry. (Contemporary jewelry from Argentina doesn’t establish or set the canon, which means this work is already on the back foot.) And then, a viewer with no knowledge of Argentina or its contemporary jewelry does not have access to the appropriate cultural frameworks – not just in terms of Argentina as a cultural space with a specific history, but in terms of these jewelers and their practices, the history of their work.

Mabel Pena (necklace) and Julieta Garcia (brooch)

What overall conclusions can be drawn from the jewelry on display in Kaleidoscope? There is a predominance of metal, of silver, which presumably relates to the kind of training available and history of contemporary jewelry in Argentina. A number of pieces do introduce other materials such as rubber, fiber, plastic and ceramic, but the logic of these materials seems almost to follow traditional rules – as if these materials were precious stones, set in a metal armature. The scale is definitely set to the wearable end of the spectrum, with a couple of large necklaces but nothing that would prove impossible to wear. Most of the work is a kind of polite contemporary jewelry scale – big enough to be noticeable, to make a statement, but still within the realm of jewelry expectations. The jewelry types featured in this exhibition are rings, bangles or bracelets, necklaces and brooches.

Leda Daverio, Nido III brooch

There is some interest in nature, with the use of forms such as leaves and flowers, and a few pieces that evoke natural textures, the surfaces of nature. For example, Leda Daverio’s Nido III brooch, like an urban soil sample, or Rafael Alvarez’s Surgimiento de la imagen bracelet, with a ‘weathered’ silver surface, or Marisa Alonso’s Rocio sobre las hojas bracelet, with silver leaves and crystal drops of dew. There are flashes of humour: Roberto Galvan’s Sputnik pendant, a cute space ship, or Lucia Brichta’s Vivitos y coleando ring, like a little abstract figure. There is a tendency towards figurative jewelry: Anibal Alvarez’s La Calesita brooch, the pictorial composition inside Paula Isola’s El Sueno pendant, the mermaid in Victoria Biagiola’s Sirena-transita suenos brooch, and the mechanical/abstract ‘landscape’ of Gustavo Paradiso’s Hangar pendant. And there is a notable use of fiber and weaving techniques, as in Graciela Lescano’s Illusion necklace, or Veronica Alonso’s Marea brooch, or Gabriela Horvat’s Sin titulo necklace. And aligned with this is a tendency to treat various materials in fiber-like ways – looping, threading, stitching, as with Andrea Bohnke’s Sur Norte necklace.

Alejandra Agusti, Infusiones necklace, and Magali Anidjar, Luna 2 brooch

There were also displays of sensitive attitudes towards materials, as in Alejanda Agusti’s Infusiones necklace with its teabags of steel, wool and wood, or Magali Anidjar’s Luna 2 brooch made of worn MDF and acrylic paint, like intentionally poor reproductions of precious, faceted stones. Perhaps the most beautiful expression of this tendency was Jorge Castanon’s Dos cuencos brooch, made of nickel silver and wood. This piece in particular exhibits an international quality in its aesthetic confidence (so simple) and cultural aspirations (as good as anything you’d see anywhere else in the world).

Jorge Castanon, Dos cuencos brooch

Which leads to a space of judgment, in which it is necessary to hold the jewelry in Kaleidoscope responsible to its aspirations as an opportunity to integrate Argentinean jewelry with contemporary jewelry regionally (Latin America) and internationally. It is arrogant, perhaps, to conclude this, but not all of this jewelry seems ready to take its place in an international discourse. Only certain pieces and practices stand out as having the quality to transcend national borders. It is hard to know how to define the ingredients of this quality, and I am also wary of imagining this is a product of connoisseurship, a kind of neutral, absolute character – since clearly such a concept as ‘international quality’ will be conditioned by values that come from outside the work itself. But all of this jewelry, whether ‘international quality’ or not, proves an awareness of contemporary jewelry that certainly guarantees Argentinean jewelry the right to reserve a seat. What the other jewelry traditions will make of Argentina’s contribution remains to be seen, and that is the great challenge and opportunity that the jewelers in Kaleidoscope have shown themselves interested in addressing.