PREZIOSA 2007-2008
Timetales, Jewellery as a representation of reflections on Time
Barcelona, Museo Textìl, November 2007-January 2008.
Lucca, Villa Bottini, April- May, 2008.
Curator, Maria Cristina Bergesio
Coordinator, Giò Carbone
Time perceived and translated into objects for the body by eleven internationally-renowned artist-jewellers through reworking and transformation of forms, materials and content, which creates a network of reflections on the past, on the function of jewellery as memory object and its existence as witness to political and social reality, but also as a reflection on the very meaning of jewellery in the contemporary world.
CONCEPT
by Maria Cristina Bergesio
Timetales, Jewellery as a representation of refl ections on Time. Time perceived and translated into objects for the body by eleven internationally-renowned artist-jewellers through reworking and transformation of forms, materials and content, which creates a network of refl ections on the past, on the function of jewellery as memory object and its existence as witness to political and social reality, but also as a refl ection on the very meaning of jewellery in the contemporary world.
The constant idea running through the exhibition is the mnemonic function of jewellery, which records today, in the culture of the present, the alternation of past stimuli (Memories of the past), of personal experiences (Private memories) and of variform signs of a multi-faceted reality (Traces of the present).
The invited artists have been chosen on the basis of the particular approaches to the concept of time that can be found in their work.
The exhibition is organized in three thematic sections
First Section: Memories of the past
Retrospection lies at the root of the creative process which has led to the making of the jewellery presented in this section. Forms, techniques and materials providing associations that recall different pasts.
The concept of metal as a pictorial surface has led GIAMPAOLO BABETTO to involve himself with famous paintings by Pontormo. The Renaissance work becomes a form of contemporary jewellery; the peculiar language of clean-cut geometrical abstraction is replaced by a surprising fi gurative choice.
Archaeological finds, fragments of metal decorations inspired by the mosaic tradition and created using traditional Japanese techniques, are to be found in the jewellery by STEFANO MARCHETTI.
Stylistic recollections of ancient jewellery constitute the work by the artist VERA SIEMUND, who examines the themes of inspiration, quotation and the particular past-present, continuity-innovation relationship in ornaments.
The jewellery by RAMÓN PUIG CUYÀS emerges as notebooks on which are graphically recorded memories, emotions and suggestions of experiences, real or imagined, of an interior time and space.
Second Section: Private memories
The jewellery in the second section accompanies us in the exploration of subjective time, in an individual psychological dimension in which memory takes on the role of identity builder and creation comes about as a narrative act.
EIJA MUSTONEN’s jewellery is profoundly linked to the natural environment of her country, Finland. The beauty, the rarity and uniqueness associated in traditional jewellery with precious materials, have been transferred and attributed to the natural landscape, that is the protagonist of her work.
The work of MARI ISHIKAWA can not be separated from the history and cultural tradition of her country, an integral part of her identity. Shinto, Buddhism, the art of the kimono and the tea ceremony make up a cultural inheritance which becomes a source of interiorized inspiration, surging up and coming back to life in her pieces
In the work of JIVAN ASTFALCK jewellery is understood not as an article closed in the unequivocal reality of a given assembly of materials, but as a discourse on the object, a conceptual metaphor with which to offer new interpretative possibilities of reality
MAH RANA considers jewellery to be an effective, concrete object-document of a personal history, and so works through projects that examine the meaning and the role of ornament, its rites, stories and meanings.
Third Section: Traces of the present
The jewellery in this section does not attempt to offer a complete panorama of the pulsating magma of the present time, but could be considered as independent identity cards in which are reflected some of the discordant vibrations of our present.
“Contemporary jewellery is dead”: the meaning, the forms, the materials, its use and the relationship of contemporary jewellery with the public are the questions around which the work of TED NOTEN comes to life and develops.
In the jewels by KATJA PRINS is possible to fi nd a perceptible ambiguous sense of the sublime when faced by an imminent, unstoppable ‘technologization’ of our daily lives, in which ever more sophisticated technological equipment conquers our bodies.
The jewellery by TANEL VEENRE exudes an uncertain, dim light, a hazy vision, a penumbra populated with presences pervades his works, in which the organic mixes with the inorganic, where materials of various origins chosen and inserted into unusual contexts are charged with symbolic and mythological references.
ARTISTS
Giampaolo Babetto
Vera Siemund
Mari Ishikawa
Eija Mustonen
Tanel Veenre
Mah Rana
Katja Prins
Ted Noten
Stefano Marchetti
Jivan Astfalck
Ramón Puig Cuyàs
PROGRAM
Exhibition
Barcelona, Spain, Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària
Auditorium La CAixa, Barcelona.
Conferences by the invited artists
Lucca, Villa Bottini, 24th of April to 18th of May, 2008
A selection of the exhibition will be showed at inhorgenta europe 2008, Mounich, Germany, 15th to 18th of February 2008
PARTNERS
Le Arti Orafe, Jewellery School & Gallery, Firenze e Lucca
Coordination/Oragnization
Giò Carbone, Le Arti Orafe
Anna Balatti, Le Arti Orafe
Fulvio Carbone, Studio Ipotesi
Lucca City Council
Curator
Maria Cristina Bergesio
Patronage
Lucca City Council
Lucca Province
Barcelona Chamber of Commerce
Italian Cultural Institure, Barcelona
GrupoDuplex, Barcelona
CaixaForum. Centro Social y
Cultural de la Obra Social la Caixa
Manifattura Tabacchi, Lucca
Mostre & Mostre, Lucca
Set-Up exhibition
Layout
Mauro Vegliante, Ark Design, Firenze
Set-Up
Mostre & Mostre, Lucca