A Redefining Exhibition
A Redefining Exhibition
Discover the capitvating works of renowned artists in a groundbreaking showcase that questions conventional perspectives
Pforzheim’s Jewellery Museum is the world’s only museum in public ownership that is dedicated exclusively to jewellery. Its collections comprise thousands of historical, as well as contemporary pieces: originals from five millennia, starting from prehistoric times to the present day. The museum’s highlights include exquisite specimens from Greek and Etruscan antiquity and the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, as well as outstanding examples of Art Nouveau jewellery, plus its unique collection of contemporary art jewellery created since 1960. Two other collections, on permanent loan and displayed since 2006, provide important complementary insights into the diversity of jewellery: the Eva and Peter Herion collection of ethnographic jewellery, and the Philipp Weber pocket watch collection owned by the Sparkasse Pforzheim Calw savings bank.
In October 2023, the museum is showcasing an exhibition called “Gone Astray –Jewellery and utensils on the fringe of reason”.
Where does usefulness end, and where does experimenting far beyond functionality begin? After all, it’s not a new thing anymore that some contemporary gold- and silversmiths question the classical canon of their respective genre, as well as their historical roots and traditions, creating wildly unusual things that violate taboos of their trade and bear witness to disobedience and to breaking rules.
“They unhinge golden rules and challenge or satirise aesthetic norms, transmuting jewellery, utensils and other objects into paraphrases of their craft,” explains the curator, Ellen Maurer Zilioli. These trends are accompanied by social, cultural and political criticism.
The show will be spotlighting jewellery, utensils and other objects that question conventional perspectives. The 29 artists featured will include, among others, Karen Pontoppidan and David Clarke, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Betrice Brovia and Nicolas Cheng.
They all work in an in-between space that allows intercultural links to be created. Their objects and inventive forms and shapes can be located on this fine line where definitions and traditional concepts serve as the foundation for highly intelligent, complex thinking about utensils, vessels and jewellery, but at the same time are always being abandoned or modified.
The exhibition will also be on view at the CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, from 19 May through 22 September 2024.
Further information
The exhibition is running 6 October 2023 through 14 January 2024 | Opens on Thursday, 5 October, 7 p.m. | www.schmuckmuseum.de/ausstellungen/vorschau