July 16th, 2010 01:07
Susan Cummins, Chair of the Art Jewelry Forum (AJF), and Susan Kempin, Award Program Chair, are pleased to announce this year’s Emerging Artist Award winner, Agnes Larsson. Larsson was chosen from among 117 entries, from 38 countries.
The goal of the Emerging Artist Award is to acknowledge promise, innovation and individuality in the work of emerging jewelers. The competition is open to makers of art jewelry who have recently completed their professional training and have not been a featured artist in a commercial gallery or museum. Larsson will receive a $5,000 cash award. In addition, her work will be featured by an AJF member gallery at the Sculptural Object and Functional Art (SOFA) Expo in Chicago and in AJF ads, and she will serve as a juror for next year’s competition.
Jurors for the 2010 competition were Namita Wiggers, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon; Susan Beech, long-standing member of AJF and collector of contemporary jewelry; and Sharon Massey, jeweler and recipient of the AJF’s 2009 Emerging Artist Award.
Criteria used in the judging were originality, depth of concept and quality of craftsmanship. Larsson used carbon and horse hair in this series of work she submitted. She allows the material to lead the way through the working process, drawing inspiration from thoughts about gravity, lightness and heaviness, death, life, transparency and darkness, growth, decomposition and transformation to show contrasts like fragility and strength, depth and surface, darkness and light.
Juror Susan Beech commented, ‘This body of work most exemplified the guidelines for judging: originality, depth of concept and quality of craftsmanship. The use of carbon and horsehair, original materials, work well together. The first thought that came to mind when I looked at this body of work was elegant.’ Sharon Massey added, ‘Agnes Larsson presents a cohesive body of work that I found quite unusual and poetic. Her forms are simple, emphasizing the texture and blackness of the carbon as well as the fragility of the horsehair. Her artistic voice seemed the most authentic and unique.’
Larsson received a BFA, in 2004, and an MFA, in 2007, in Silversmithing and Jewellery from Konstfack University College of Arts, Craft and Design, Stockholm, Sweden.
July 12th, 2010 10:07
Here’s a nice article by AJF member Lindsay Pollock, originally published in Art + Auction, about the growing interest in contemporary jewelry, and a number of important donations to American museums over the past couple of years which have shifted institutional attitudes to contemporary jewelry as a notable (and collectable) practice. (To read the article, click here.)
A number of the people discussed in the article, including Donna Schneier and Helen Drutt English, are members of AJF, which goes to show that it is possible to make a significant impact on behalf of contemporary jewelry in the wider art world. AJF began life as an organization of contemporary jewelry collectors who wanted to make a practical difference to the art jewelry scene through grants and programs that would support makers – and the writers, curators, museums and collectors who support them. AJF has been working hard to expand its activities, and to broaden its membership base. If you would like to get involved, and put your membership donation to work on enhancing the recognition and support for contemporary jewelry, then consider becoming a member of AJF. To find out more about what this involves, click here.
June 15th, 2010 08:06
AJF was started by a bunch of contemporary jewelry collectors with more dollars than sense – according to the perspective of husbands, wives, friends, children, accountants and the fine arts world. Amidst the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, our plucky founders refused to suffer in silence and answered their critics by letting their billfolds follow their beliefs, and buying jewelry that did more than twinkle prettily and make spurious claims to value. Given that history, we were pleased to come across this paen to the patron by The Guardian‘s columnist Jonathan Jones, who exhorts us to ‘remember that most of the world’s great works of art are the fruit of spendaholic patronage by magnificos who knew how to tell the accountants where to go’. (To read the column, click here.) And should you lack the resources of a Medici prince or a Guggenheim heiress, then remember that you can become a bonafide patron of contemporary jewelry by becoming a member of AJF. We take your modest but valuable donation and turn it into elaborate and beautiful programs that support makers, and all the people who support them. (To take your first step on the stairway to the heaven of helping the less-fortunate yet artistically gifted jewelers of the world, click here.)
June 14th, 2010 10:06
If you are looking for excellent ceramics you will find lots to admire at the British Crafts Council’s COLLECT art fair. But really the reason to go to London in May is the jewelry. Dodging volcanic ash spewing from Iceland, Art Jewelry Forum made its first international trip. For many, it was the first time to see the high end craft fair that is now housed in the beautiful light filled rooms of the Saatchi Gallery in West London. Twenty of the thirty six galleries at COLLECT exhibited jewelry, many of them exclusively. To give an idea of what COLLECT feels like I took photos of many of the galleries showing jewelry.
The exhibiting galleries were given a lot of space to display the work, with most of the Saatchi’s large rooms having only three stands per room. Some galleries such as Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon (not pictured) built a room within a room to show small precious objects such as Giovanni Corvaja’s gold fur pieces. The Scottish Gallery had a pavilion with silver work and a single rare piece of jewelry by Peter Chang (sold). But most galleries took a minimal (sometimes austere) stance with display. Galerie Marzee’s awesome collection was shown in an enormous double row of steel and glass tables that required glass installer suction handles in order to remove the pieces. This provided great drama when looking at work and admirable upper body strength in the sales staff.
A few of the galleries displayed mini-exhibitions of a single artist such as Wendy Ramshaw at Lesley Craze Gallery, Kevin Coates at Ruthin Craft Centre, and Iris Eichenberg’s wonderful pink pieces at Galerie Louise Smit. Rome-based Alternatives Gallery showed an especially strong group including terrific jewelry and objects by Fabrizio Tridenti.
Two of the oldest jewelry galleries showed why they are at the top of the field with Galerie Ra (est. 1976) from Amsterdam showing beautiful new pieces by New Zealander Warwick Freeman made of laminated slabs of precious colored stones, and also a great selection of international artists. Electrum Gallery (est. 1971) had a large stand with established artists such as Gerda Flockinger, Charlotte de Syllas, and Bryan Illsley, and colorful paper work by youngish Angela O’Kelly.
Two of the newer galleries were Galerie SO from Switzerland (and also a great new space in London) and Amsterdam based Galerie Rob Kouldijs. Koudijs showed an installation by Alexander Blank called The Gathering of beautiful (and large!) black lacquered brooches of stylized animal heads. Galerie SO, in a minimal and elegant display, showed a combination of jewelry and objects. There were good challenging pieces by Bernard Schobinger and Manuel Vilhena as well as new work by silversmith Simone ten Hompel and metalsmith bad boy David Clarke. There were also a few non-gallery organizations exhibiting at COLLECT. Craft Scotland showed all craft media with strong jewelry by Stacey Bentley, Leah Black and Misun Won. Cockpit Arts, who house two large artist studio centers in London, featured good work by studio members Ruth Tomlinson and Kelvin Berk.
In contrast to the prevailing modernist architecture of most of the stands at COLLECT Galerie Sofie Lachaert built a witty (and all very white) display of wooden tables and wall mounted dress shirts in boxes with the jewelry neatly displayed on well starched white shirts. Mostly jewelry, Lachaert featured terrific work by David Bielander, Flora Vagi, John Iversen and Giampaolo Babetto and many others. Rosemarie Jager had a long table with a casually displayed array of ceramic and metal cups and vessels looking like the most amazing jumble sale ever. It was a fresh contrast to the everything-is-very-precious-object-on-plinth mentality of most of COLLECT. She had amazing new pieces from Bettina Dittelmann and Annamaria Zanella. Norwegian Galleri Format showed some of the most adventurous jewelry at the fair in the work of Anna Talbot, Hedda Bjerkeli and Elise Hatlø. Format also exhibited intriguing ceramics by Heidi Bjørgan.
It was hard to see all the great work at COLLECT. Even going every day of the run of the fair there was lots to miss. The galleries exhibiting jewelry moved things around and pulled new pieces from drawers so that the stands seemed to have new things you wanted each time you passed by. Add to this the many artists that attended COLLECT, it was a rich and exhausting experience. If you haven’t been, you should go. If you have been, I’ll see you there next year!
June 13th, 2010 08:06
There was a lovely chill in the air as the AJF London trip got off to an appropriate start with a tea and scones event at the traditional Draycott Hotel. Most of the participants had not been to the COLLECT fair before and so we asked Liesbeth den Besten, a writer and curator from Amsterdam to give a talk about the galleries and jewelers we were about to meet. She had done her research well and not only talked about what we might see but also showed a number of pieces of jewelry that we actually saw at the show.
Then it was off to the event itself. The Saatchi gallery is in a beautiful stately building just off King’s Road near Sloane Square. As we entered the high ceilinged rooms a beautifully diffused light illuminated it all. It was evident that these spaces were made to show off artwork in a particular way. This light was very much of a presence and perhaps even a distraction in viewing the displays but of course that didn’t stop anyone one from looking. We all scattered to look at the fantastic jewelry and make our decisions about what to add to our collections. There was lots of excitement expressed about our discoveries.
Then we were on to Tom’s Kitchen for dinner in a large private room. We were joined by a British couple Jacqueline and Jonathon Gestetner, who livened up the evening by asking us questions about the group and about our collections. It was a dinner filled with laughter and important transatlantic exchange and by the end of the evening we were all completely worn out.
On the second day of the trip we were invited back to COLLECT for a VIP Breakfast and most of the group found that they needed a second look. We met for an early Italian lunch across the street from the Victoria & Albert Museum and were subjected to the Italian sense of timing so arrived late for our appointment with Beatriz Chadour, David Watkins and Wendy Ramshaw. Once back on track we were taken through the permanently installed William and Judith Bollinger Jewelry Center and the temporary retrospective of David Watkins. The V&A is an overwhelming visual experience and jewelry is intense enough in it’s own right but when there are 35,000 pieces in one display it literally takes your breath away. Beatriz tried to orient us to the historical things in particular which was helpful but only served to make us wish we had the whole week to learn more. The David Watkins display was located in the midst of a long, long hall of silver work and stained glass windows from throughout the ages. It was actually shocking to come upon the very cool and minimalist aesthetic of his jewelry amidst all the fancy ornamentation. He was a lovely and patient host along with Wendy Ramshaw, who answered all our questions about their lives together and his jewelry.
Next we met Hans Stofer at the entrance to the V&A and walked over to the Royal College of Art to visit his class of students. He told us a bit about the program there over tea and coffee. The program is only for graduate level students and everyone is encouraged to pursue their own interests on a deep level. This program was under the guidance of David Watkins for several decades and Hans has just been there for the past three years. Then we went into the student spaces and spent an hour or more talking with the students. We were completely won over by the variety of imaginative and thoughtful work being done. It was the highlight of the trip for many.
Back at the Saatchi Gallery Mark Lyman and Anne Mesko from SOFA, the American equivalent of COLLECT, arranged a classy cocktail reception to announce their new grant. The first ever New Voices Grant for International Decorative Arts and Design Discourse was given to Art Jewelry Forum. It was the first grant we have ever received, and we were honored to be recognized. As AJF chair, I had the pleasure of announcing that Damian Skinner would receive this £3500 award to come to COLLECT next year to review the work on display and report back in the fall at SOFA Chicago. The rest of the evening was free.
The third day of the trip started in the early afternoon at Electrum Gallery with a talk about the historical significance of the space to the development of contemporary jewelry. This is where Barbara Cartlidge and Ralph Turner displayed the most modern and exciting work of swinging London in the 1970s and beyond. Dorothy Hogg, former chair of the jewelry department at the University in Edinburgh was there to talk about the current show called Natural Beauty. Next we walked over to the Contemporary Applied Arts (CAA) space and had a thoughtful talk from Amanda Game about the work in a show there called Drawing with Objects, where she discussed the relationship between drawings and objects as she sees it.
Then we went downstairs to the shop where there were many temptations made by some of the 350 makers who belong to CAA as well as a grouping of necklaces and bracelets by David Watkins. David and Wendy, our new best friends were there as well. It was important for some of the group to be able to try on these to see what they looked like and how they felt. The new book about Wendy and David called David Watkins, Wendy Ramshaw: A Life’s Partnership by Graham Hughes was also there for purchase and autographs.
Our final visit of the day was a cab ride away at Galerie SO on Brick Lane. Hans Stofer was having a show here in Felix Flury’s beautiful new gallery space. Hans’s show was like no other jewelry show you have ever seen. His pieces were collages of doors, buckets, boxes, carts light bulbs, plywood and jewelry made from cast offs. It was imaginative, free flowing and about as different as it could be from David Watkins’s work. It made us wonder how the students at RCA that were caught in the transition from one teacher to the other survived. Despite that, Hans’s show was probably the one of the few exhibitions made by a jeweler that actually engages the contemporary art scene on its own terms. Quite good to see it is possible.
We ended the trip with a lovely dinner at Whitechapel Gallery dining room. It was a fantastic meal to end a fantastic and stimulating trip.
June 12th, 2010 09:06
Last call, everyone. The Emerging Artist Award, one of AJF’s grant schemes to support contemporary jewelers at the very beginning of their careers, is closing on Sunday 13th June 2010. You’ve heard us say it all before, so we aren’t going to offer anything other than this link and this link and this link to our previous posts, and a gallery of images by another of our lovely previous winners of the EAA, Masumi Kataoka, who was top dog in 2008. To those of you who have entered in 2010, we here at AJF salute you and hope you too will experience – to quote that great American Robin Leach – champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
June 3rd, 2010 10:06
Well, it isn’t quite as dramatic as the title of this post might suggest, but there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth to match any Renaissance vision of hell from those who do not get their applications submitted for the Emerging Artist Award. Each year AJF gives $5000 to a young jeweler at the beginning of their career as a small but significant gesture of support and encouragement. The award is open to jewelers from around the world who have graduated from formal study and not yet had a solo exhibition in a gallery or museum. The winner will be decided by blind jury. (And no, for all you wits out there who might be preparing a snappy barb for the comments function on this post, we aren’t referring to the jurors and their optical capabilities, but the process.) Entries must be received by the 13th June 2010, and you can apply at www.callforentry.org/
And now, because a picture is worth a thousand posts, and because AJF is like an elephant when it comes to never forgetting those we have already celebrated, here are some images of work by Sergey Jiventin, who won the EAA in 2005. Sergey, we salute you and all the past winners of the award. And for the lucky individual who will claim the EAA crown in 2010, may the price of gold (or whatever material you favour) plummet just as the cheque arrives in the mail!
May 21st, 2010 03:05
Just a reminder to all you young, talented and yet uncomfortably poor contemporary jewelers out there that it is time for you to be applying for AJF’s EAA. FYI for those of you saying WTF at all the acronyms, the Emerging Artist Award is a $5000 US prize given out by Art Jewelry Forum each year to a contemporary jeweler at the beginning of their career. You must have competed your academic or professional training, have been out of school for at least a year, and not yet achieved the distinction of a solo exhibition in a commercial gallery or museum. If you fit this description, and your jewelry is brilliant but still awaiting its audience, then the EAA is definitely for you. The deadline for submissions is the 13th June 2010. You can find out more about the award by clicking here. To submit your entry, go to www.callforentry.org/
The winning entry will be selected by our jury of esteemed jewelry experts: Namita Wiggers, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland; Susan Beech, collector and long-standing AJF member; and Sharon Massey, jeweler and winner of the EAA in 2009. You can find out more about past winners of the EAA – such as Andrea Janosik – by clicking here, but all you really need to know is that they were showered with praise and glory and cash, and their lives have become like a craftsperson’s dream, filled with enormous studios, wine and cheese, happy dealers, enthusiastic collectors and sympathetic critics.
Finally, if you aren’t a contemporary jeweler at the beginning of your career, but you like what AJF is doing by way of the EAA and our other grant schemes, then why not consider becoming a member? Your membership donation supports jewelers (and those who support them), and gives you access to a group of people from around the world who are passionate about contemporary jewelry, so much so that they are prepared to put their money where, to paraphrase an old saying, their necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings and brooches are. (To find out more about joining AJF, click here.)
May 18th, 2010 02:05
Here at AJF we have a saying: the kumara never boasts of its own sweetness. For those of you who don’t know, the kumara is a root vegetable, like a sweet potato, and it is delicious. However, the kumara doesn’t tell the other veges how good it is to eat, it just spends its time being as yummy as it possibly can be. Every now and then, however, someone decides the kumara is just so tasty that it deserves a little award, and so AJF finds itself the recipient of SOFA’s new research grant. This is the first award that AJF has received, and while we are more used to giving out grants than getting them, we have to say it is kind of nice. Here’s a statement from AJF’s very own Susan Cummins, which will give you some more details.
And on that note the kumara goes back into the vegetable bin. (Thank you!)
March 7th, 2010 04:03
The AJF Emerging Jewelry Artist award is now open for business, bigger and better than ever in its eleventh year. If you are a contemporary jeweler who has completed your academic or professional training, have been out of school for more than one year, and have not yet had a solo exhibition in a commercial gallery or museum, then we are looking for you.
Just like reality television – although without the television and, hopefully, the histrionics – the AJF Emerging Jewelry Artist award can be your path to fame and fortune. All you have to do is dazzle our panel of judges – Namita Wiggers, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Susan Beech, long-standing AJF member and jewelry collector, and Sharon Massey, recipient of the 2009 award – with your talent, ambition and, of course, your jewelry. The award is open to any emerging jeweler from anywhere around the world, and the deadline for submissions is 13 June 2010. (To read more about the award, click here.) The winner will be showered with praise and glory, and the not-too-shabby sum of $5000.
Finally, if you are not an emerging jeweler but believe that programs such as these are a valuable addition to the contemporary jewelry scene, then please consider becoming a member of AJF. Not only are AJF members scientifically proven to be more popular and better looking than the rest of the jewelry-loving population, but they glow with the special joy that comes from making a difference through AJF’s various programs. To find out more about why you should become a member of AJF and what your membership donation will be used for, click here.