Museums on University Campuses (or Univ. affiliation)
Researched and Compiled by Sharon Campbell. The majority of the jewelry exhibitions that follow were initiated by educators / metalsmiths inside of the academic world. These shows are created to raise the awareness. I have heard it from many instructors: most students come to school knowing about famous artists in other media but they are hard pressed to name 3 famous metalsmiths. Their idea of jewelry is what they know from the traditional commercial industry. That is why the educators are putting in all this effort to curate exhibitions, looking for funds to document the shows and seeking venues where their shows can travel. The prevalent grievance, as spoken by Sondra Sherman, “The reason the institutional support outside of the academic world would be important is they reach a larger audience; they have authority and confer ‘art’ credibility. This helps generate more support and encourages more talented artists to work in this media/format.”
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS - September, 2006
“East Coast meets West Coast”
Massachusetts College of Art in conjunction with Mobilia Gallery is hosting a Symposium on September 15 & 16, 2006 in Boston.
Workshops and Lectures given by the following artists:Marilyn da Silva: “Non-traditional Color on Metal”; Jack da Silva: “Metal in Motion: an Exploration of Anticlastic Forming”; Arline Fisch: “Textile Techniques in; Sarah Perkins: “Down and Dirty Enameling”; and Mariko Kusumoto: (lecture only)
There will be a book sale and signing during the event. A reception at Mobilia Gallery for the artists will follow the lectures on Saturday evening, September 16th.
On Sunday, September 17th, the Daphne Farago Lecture on Craft Jewelrypresents: “The Mozart Jewels of Kevin Coates” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
For more information, visit: http://alumni.massart.edu/metalssymposium
The Atrium Gallery - Ball State University
http://www.bsu.edu/cfa/art/gallery/Atrium/
Ross Art Museum - Ohio Wesleyan University
http://admission.owu.edu/ross.html
January 2005
Lisa Gralnick – “The Gold Standard” works to conduct an inquiry into the value systems through which contemporary society negotiates progress, accumulates, knowledge, and promotes physical comfort through consumerism.
Bakalar Gallery Massachusetts College of Art Boston http://babel.massart.edu/metals/contact/
June 13 – September 30, 2004
“ContacT”: an international jewelry exhibition is a workshop series and an international conference of artists who are actively exploring new and relevant ways to make jewelry speak, using this wordless medium as a way to contact with others. Jewelry is an intimate personal means of communicating concepts, ideals, status, and beliefs to ourselves as well as to those around us. This powerful language, worn on our bodies, crosses cultural and social boundaries throughout the world.
Bannister Gallery Rhode Island College –Providence, RI
http://www.ric.edu/Bannister/
October 30 – November 26, 2003
Evocative Objects : Studio Metalsmithing and Jewelry
Curated by Sondra Sherman
Documented w/ catalogue.
The works in the exhibition use the familiarity and traditional roles of jewelry and domestic objects to access ideas, emotions, and perceptual experiences encouraged by their association to the individual or the home.
March 31 - April 22, 2005
“Alternatives: Materials / Means”
Documented w/ color poster.
Curated by Sondra Sherman
Works selected are one-of-a kind / limited edition, jewelry objects created predominately by non-traditional means and / or materials. The key word is predominant — not in the sense of how found objects have been used in place of gemstones, but as more essential in determining the idea and form of the work.
Belk Gallery – Western Carolina University Cullowhee, NC
http://www.wcuart@wcu.edu/
March 13 – April 14, 2000
“Daniel Jocz: uncommon sense”
Curated by Suzanne Ramljak
Incorporating aspects of architecture, sculpture, painting, and the decorative arts, his small-scale objects also engage various stylistic movements, including Surrealism, Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop.
Documented with a catalogue and traveled to: The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Rosenwald Wolf Gallery – University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Gallery of Art & Design – North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.
Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery - Bowling Green State University - Bowling Green Ohio
August 27 – September 27, 2002
“Inventing Contemporary Ornament” Curated by Tom Muir
This exhibition included a range of utilitarian and non-utilitarian jewelry, vessels, and sculpture created by of 14 artists. Each artist offers a unique viewpoint that informs her/his work, providing us with a rich and stimulating perspective that interprets and interacts with contemporary, historical, and social issues.
Cranbrook – Bloomfield Hills, MI
http://www.cranbrook.edu/art/museum/
November 15, 1996 – January 5, 1997
“Signals: Late Twentieth-Century American Jewelry” Curated by Gary Griffin Featured in American Craft April/May 1997
This exhibition describes the 15 featured artists as being “consciously aware of the issues related to the wearing of Jewelry” and employing “the public and social nature of jewelry in the distribution of the messages.” Gary Griffin points out that the human body is not only the site of display but also the subject. In virtually all these works, the body is either mapped, described, located, used metaphorically or in some way rendered inseparable from what the works are about. This show traveled to the Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, Quebec, Canada and the Parsons School of Design, NY, NY. “Messengers of Modernism” was the concurrent exhibition.
Elvehjem Museum of Art – University of Wisconsin Madison, WI http://www.lvm.wisc.edu/
Mid-2006
“Fred Fenster, Eleanor Moty, and the University of Wisconsin Art Metals Program”
Organized for the Elvehjem Museum of Art by guest curator Jody Clowes, the exhibition will feature approximately 100 works by twenty-eight artists, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue.
The June Fitzpatrick Gallery at MECA - Maine College of Art Portland, ME Presents its first contemporary jewelry exhibition
http://www.junefitzpatrickgallery.com/
November 18th, 2004
“Sensuous Matter”
Curated by Tina Rath and Sharon Portelance
This exhibition seeks to explore the ways in which artists understand and engage the world through Sensuous Matter.
Gallery of Art & Design North Carolina State University -– Raleigh, NC
www.ncsu.edu/gad
August 19 - Sept. 26, 2004
“Rings” Curated by Robert Ebendorf
125 contemporary rings juried by Robert Ebendorf, by makers from across the country will be displayed. Ebendorf was the juror for the newly published Lark book, 1000 Rings. The rings included in this exhibition are from this book.
The Adair Margo Gallery University of Texas at El Paso
http://www.adairmargo.com/
January 17th – March, 2005
”Hanging in Balance: Forty-two Contemporary Necklaces” is a survey of innovative jewelry by recognized artists from England, Germany, Mexico and the U.S. All of the pieces are one-of-a-kind art works that may affect the wearer’s posture and relationship with internal and external worlds. This exhibition is the second in a continuing series of format-based contemporary jewelry exhibitions hosted by UTEP (“The Ring” was on view in September/October 2002.)
The RISD Museum - Rhode Island School of Design
http://www.risd.edu/
Continues to collect jewelry for the Museum collection, both historic and contemporary and recently placed 40 pieces from their jewelry collection on permanent view in two drawers in the Silver Gallery in Pendleton House.
February 2 – April 15, 2001
“A View by Two”
Curated by Louis Mueller and Barbara Seidenath
When asked what he was hoping to accomplish with this exhibition, Louis Mueller said: I think it is important to help people understand that even though jewelry is for decoration and adornment, there is a lot to it. If you look at these little objects, a lot of them are so beautifully rendered and wonderful proportioned – and the surface, color, details are all so carefully resolved. I hope this exhibition provides an opportunity for people to appreciate what goes into their struggles and their creative efforts.
The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art SUNY-New Paltz, NY
www.newpaltz.edu/museum/
(Part of its mission is to build and sustain an art jewelry collection.)
January – March, 2002
“Markers in Contemporary Metal”
Curated by Myra Mimlitsch Gray & Jamie Bennett
Reviewed in Metalsmith
The artists in “Markers” represent a closely-knit group of practitioners whose shared academic experience, while genealogically succinct, reveals an impressive breadth of individual creative expression. For some, the body is the locus for physical, visual and conceptual engagement, whether through jewelry or objects. Others negotiate historical and contemporary concepts related to the nature of utilitarian objects. The exhibition enables the viewer to consider how objects are marked by their associations, by the intent of the artist, and by their existence in a particular time and context. The show highlighted the permanent collection and included over 120 works by fifty-four artists represented therein.
Sharon Campbell was a founding member of the Art Jewelry Forum. She presently sits on the Jewelry Acquisition Committee and the Collection Committee at the Tacoma Art Museum, and is a trustee on the board of Pratt Fine Arts Center. She lives in Seattle, WA.
FEATURED UNIVERSITY EXHIBITION
Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Gallery
University of Texas at El Paso
January 20-March 10, 2005
Hanging in Balance: Forty-Two Contemporary Necklaces
Hanging in Balance: Forty-Two Contemporary Necklaces is a survey of innovative jewelry by recognized artists from England, Germany, Mexico and the U.S. All of the pieces are one-of-a-kind, newly created and never before exhibited art works that may affect the wears’ posture and relationship with internal and external worlds. Each draws upon historical examples of body adornment as a signifier of social status and personal beliefs. Though these historical examples range widely in materials, aesthetics and meaning, they share two important traits: wearability and the power to convey meaning. Each of the fourteen invited artists will create three works for the exhbition. The artists include:
Nora FokNora Fok Maru Almeida, Mexico; Nora Fok, U.K.; Jan Baum, U.S.; Maria Hanson, U.K.; Iris Boedemer, Germany; Dorothy Hogg, U.K.; Cynthia Cousens, U.K.; Svenja John, Germany; Bettina Dittlmann, Germany; Maria Phillips, U.S.; Helen Dorion, U.S.; Anika Ariella Smulovitz, U.S.; Sandra Enterline, U.S.; Andrea Wippermann, Germany.
For Hanging in Balance, Rachelle Thiewes, co-curator of the exhibition and professor of art at UTEP, selected artists who create jewelry that performs these traits and also draws inspiration from additional sources, including nature, industry, theater, architecture and the history of art. For example, Cynthia Cousens looks to the natural surroundings of her home in Brighton, England, stringing branch-like forms between willowy links of silver. Nora Fok knits monofilament into collars that reference those worn by jesters or seventeenth-century Dutchmen. Jan Baum enamels floral forms reminiscent of Art Nouveau decorative arts and wallpaper patterns.
The exhibition catalogue will include two essays that explore these complex references. Invited essayist Ursula Ilse-Neuman, curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, will examine how the necklaces expand the history of art and of jewelry. Co-curator Kate Bonansinga will discuss the formal qualities of each piece and how those qualities interact with and transform the wearer. The exhibition will travel to the Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio, TX, (June-August 2005) and Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA (November 1-December 15, 2005). The visiting artists component of the exhibition at the Rubin will be funded in part by Anne and Sam Davis.