Featuring jewelry items, sculptural and conceptual works by 53 artists, the exhibition and its accompanying publication will provide an intriguing insight into Austrian jewelry creation since the 1970s.
One focus will lie on the female protagonists of the early days of avant-garde jewelry, as their works are placed in relation to selected positions from the middle and young generation of both sexes. The exhibition illustrates the multifarious trends within an exciting and diverse jewelry scene as it unfolded in the specific Austrian context, which is characterized, among other things, by the history of the Wiener Werkstätte, the human body as subject and object in the Fine Arts, and the country’s particular training situation.
Under the description author jewelry, jewelry has been an established art form across the world since the late 1960s. Not only is this new concept realized through the use of materials and techniques totally alien to jewelry—it also reflects and interprets the socio-cultural and aesthetic trends of its time. One notion is usually foremost, here: jewelry is the medium for a statement. Beyond the purely decorative, pieces of jewelry thus become independent and self-willed objects.
The exhibition’s aim is to bring to life developments that shaped Austria’s jewelry scene as it performs a perspectival shift: the exhibition and its accompanying publication demonstrate how female artists have considerably co-determined the much-noticed happenings on Austria’s avant-garde jewelry scene—and this is clear not only based on their works, but also in their influence on subsequent generations of jewelry creators.