Press
Power of nature: Jewelry exhibition at the Elizabeth Cipriani Jewelry Gallery
A few days ago, the exhibition Force of Nature, curated by Melanie Grant, opened at the Elizabeth Cipriani Gallery in London. Melanie is a well-known jewelry journalist, author of Coveted (“a book about jewelry that you want to read”, as connoisseurs and lovers of jewelry say about her) and an album dedicated to jewelry by Chinese jeweler Wallace Chan.
The idea of the exhibition is to erase the boundaries between the world of jewelry and art, so Melanie brought together 18 jewelers and artists (residents of the Serpentine Gallery in London) in one gallery space to create jewelry (or provide ready-made ones) dedicated to nature or the interaction of man and nature.
The list of exhibition residents looks like a jewelry and art walk of fame: Wallace Chan, Andrew Grima and Francesca Grima, Bibi van der Velden, James de Givenchy, Ute Decker and Ai Weiwei. The show also features two paired bracelets by Melanie Grant herself – this is the first time she has acted as a jewelry designer.
The jewelry exposition – six flat showcases, golden cabinets made in the Art Deco style – are complemented by paintings by Italian modernists from the collection of the Cipriani Gallery, large-scale monochrome canvases on the entire wall look like massive frames for jewelry.
The Force of Nature exhibit looks like another and this time a very visible stone thrown into a glass wall that separates the world of jewelry and fine arts. For everyone inside the jewelry industry, it has long been clear that the value of a piece of jewelry is determined not only by the value of the materials used in it. Expression, skill, social agenda – all that are criteria for judging a work of fine art – are also present in jewelry.
Perhaps this is why designers who want to be noticed “beyond the carat” often introduce into their jewelry completely non-jewelry materials such as ordinary pebbles (like James de Givenchy) or semi-precious stones, or deliberately abandon techniques that are inherent in jewelry art. The shapes that we find in modern jewelry, even inspired by nature,
It is impossible to highlight one thing. All 40 jewelry objects, each flawless in its own style, are design, artistic statements. Especially interesting are two things that are completely different in meaning, but still similar in working with material. Ai Weiwei’s spiral bracelet made of gold channel, instantly recognizing a common building material and the heritage of ancient Greek jewelery radium.
And Andrew Grim’s brooch in the form of a gold hemisphere with diamonds, cast from a cast from a lychee skin, similar to both an elegant designer’s joke and a brilliant work with “natural material”.
Original article: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5089648
This article appeared on 24th November 2021.
Written by Natalia Filatova-Kietiene.