SOFA NEW YORK 2006 LECTURE SERIES SPOTLIGHT: INTERNATIONAL ART JEWELRY

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Art jewelry at SOFA NEW YORK 2005 in the booth of Charon Kransen Arts, New York, NY.

CHICAGO, APRIL 10, 2006.  The SOFA NEW YORK 2006 Lecture Series announces a special focus on international art jewelry, featuring presentations by David Watkins, Ted Noten, Giampaolo Babetto, David Bielander and Helen Britton.  Anne Meszko, Director of Educational Programming for the SOFA said, “We are delighted to present five seminal European jewelers whose artworks have challenged traditional boundaries of jewelry—pieces that move beyond ornamentation and preciousness, towards an increasingly conceptual studio practice.”   Featured artists have helped redefine jewelry’s relationship to the body, to culture and the fine art world, a process that has recovered ancient goldsmithing techniques while at the same time opened itself to the many varied manifestations of object art.

Ted Noten Lady K-Bag, 2005 Gun engraved with flowers and heavily goldplated- cast in acrylic, textile 20 x 14 x 10 cm Photo: Ted Noten Ornamentum, Hudson, NY

A major figure in attempting to (often humorously) question the established codes of the body, of value and consumer society, Dutch jeweler and artist, Ted Noten (Ornamentum, Hudson, NY)  has been asking the question—what is jewelry—art form, status symbol or deconstructions of both?  Consider his brooches cut from the bodywork of a brand new Mercedes Benz. Or his renowned purses with startling cultural artifacts encased in perspex interiors like pistols, platinum credit cards and 24 carat pills—at once surreal object, both looking glass and mirror.

Ted Noten Chew Your Own Brooch Ornamentum, Hudson, NY

Noten has been involved in seminal product design projects including one with famed Droog Design that presented at the Furniture Design Fair in Milan, Italy.  Gert Stall, Design Critic and former deputy director of the Netherlands Design Institute, said of Noten’s varied oeuvre, “By lifting symbols from their everyday surroundings and placing them in a new context, he doesn’t so much query the symbol itself as our perception of it.”  As an added attraction to his SOFA NEW YORK lecture, Noten will invite the audience to “Chew Your Own Brooch” and spit out a self-sculpted artwork to be reviewed by an all-star jury tasked to choose gold, silver and bronze winners, whose designs will be made into wearable artworks by Noten himself.

David Watkins Palaces of the Night, 2003 Stainless steel layered bangle with black plasma coating 5 7/8" Diameter Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon, London, UK

In 1965, David Watkins (Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon, London, UK) and avant-garde British jeweler Wendy Ramshaw founded the ground-breaking fashion jewelry company “Something Special.”  In the early 1970’s Watkins set up practice as a studio jeweler and rapidly achieved an international reputation.  During the 1980’s he established a second studio/ workshop for large-scale forged and fabricated steel, utilizing a combination of engineering and hot metal processes for sculpture and public art projects.

David Watkins Leaf Pin 6, 1997 Yellow gold 3.1 d Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon, London, UK

As the Head of Department and Professor of Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery since 1984 at London’s prestigious Royal College of Art, Watkins has consistently promoted the use of new production and design technologies alongside more traditional processes. Always fascinated by the intersection of technology and aesthetics, the machine and the hand, his career as an innovative jewelry artist has spanned over three decades, with pioneering work in plastics, synthetic coatings, computer-aided design, laser and water-jet cutting technologies.  His works are in many public collections, including the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Arts & Design, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; and Victoria & Albert Museum, London. In addition to his studio practice, Watkins has published three books – The Best in Contemporary Jewellery (Rotovision 1994), A Design Source Book: Jewellery (New Holland 1999) and, with Wendy Ramshaw, The Paper Jewellery Collection (Thames & Hudson 2000).  Presented by Society of North American Goldsmiths.

Giampaolo Babetto Anello (ring), 2001 White gold, niello, pigment Photo: Giustino Chemello Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA

Aligning his art with architecture, Italian jewelry designer Giampaolo Babetto (Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA) has said: “Jewelry should no longer be a sculpture worn, but an architectural object designed for body. It should find its rhythms through body form and movements.”  Babetto’s work as a jewelry maker and metalsmith has been exhibited and praised around the world. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, and began teaching at the P. Selvatico Art Institute in 1969.  He has been honored with two Herbert Hoffmann Awards at the Schmuckschau, Munich; the Grand Prix, Japan Jewelry Design Association, Tokyo; and the Gold Medal from the State of Bavaria, among others. He has taught and been a visiting lecturer at Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam; Fachhochschule in Düsseldorf; the University of San Diego, the Summer Academy Salzburg, and Rhode Island School of Design.

Giampaolo Babetto Anello (ring), 2004 18k white gold, niello, pigment Photo: Giustino Chemello Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA

Babetto’s jewelry was recently described in the catalog accompanying the exhibition, Transformations: The language of craft at The National Gallery of Australia: “Abstraction of the sense of place and the history of materials can be found in (his) spare, geometric jewellery. Born and working in the midst of the Veneto, he draws upon its classical architectural language of Palladian proportion in the design of his uncompromisingly geometric works for the body. His precise and measured use of gold as a primary structural material for his jewellery honours the intensity of this ancient material with lyricism and delicacy, while his use of intense pigments and ancient colouring techniques, such as niello, give the coloured and black planes in his works a physicality that no paint can achieve.”

David Bielander Peacock Brooch, 2006 Shell, gold 2.5 x 2 Jewelers Werk Galerie, Washington, DC

Swiss jewelry has always been of the highest craftsmanship, spawning generations of innovative jewelry artists like Meret Oppenheim, Bernhard Schobinger, Otto Künzli, Pierre Degen and Christoph Zellweger.  Former master students of Otto Künzli at the Academy of Fine Art, Munich, Swiss-born David Bielander and Australian native, Helen Britton (both represented by Jewelers Werk Galerie, Washington, DC), share a studio in Munich and are building a reputation as two of Europe’s finest young jewelers.  Of his work, Bielander said, “It should look easy, like a little magic trick, a children’s game. I go in a direct way and build clear, often figurative pictures. I let the associative possibilities that lie in the materials serve the observer, and so six stones become a Koala bear, 400 pink pearls a sow’s head, an unformed tumbled tiger eye is an elephant’s trunk, and a flesh red rubber ring, a mouth.”

Helen Britton Last Rest (brooch), 2006 Engraved silver, paint, freshwater pearls and glass Jewelers' Werk Galerie, Washington, DC

In 2005, Helen Britton was awarded the prestigious Herbert Hoffmann prize for excellence in contemporary jewelry.  Of her work, she said: “That I make jewelry and not fun rides, buildings or gardens is not surprising, the scale of my work allows a full range of fantasies without leaving a legacy of public monstrosities--instead I leave these modest little machines and landscapes for wearing. There is an ethics at work here. These objects are nostalgic and romantic, but also explorative and direct; collisions of elements from the chaos and order of lived experience.” Bielander/Britton lecture presented by Art Jewelry Forum.

Arlene Fisch Lace Halo Fine and sterling silver, pearls, crochet, & hairpin lace 10 x 9" Photo:William Gullette Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA

Another exciting jewelry artist attending SOFA NEW YORK is Arlene Fisch (Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA), an internationally known artist who applies the structures and techniques of fabrics to precious and nonprecious metals, creating intricate, colorful jewelry by knitting, crocheting, plaiting and weaving.  She is the author of the definitive book in the field, Textile Techniques in Metal.  Of her esteemed 40-year career, Fisch said, “I have always been concerned with the making of jewelry to be worn, of unique works of art, which have the human body as their site. I try always to develop objects of personal adornment, which have dramatic impact yet do not place the wearer in the role of anonymous pedestal, forms which please and exalt the wearer. The strongest influences on my work have come from studies of ancient cultures – Etruscan, Egyptian, Greek, Pre-Columbian – from which I have derived direction, design courage and technical information.”  Fisch will attend SOFA NEW YORK for a special launch and author signing of her new book, Crocheted Wire Jewelry: Innovative Designs and Projects by Leading Artists, published by Lark Books.

Twelve Lecture Series presentations, complimentary with admission, take place during SOFA NEW YORK 2006 on Thursday, June 1 – Saturday, June 3 in the Tiffany Room at the Seventh Regiment Armory. View Lecture Series Schedule.