Redazione
Yukiko Kakimoto
Giappone
I use the technique of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is unique to the Japanese culture; it’s a method of repairing cracked or broken pottery. The process of Kintsugi can remind us of how we try to mend ourselves in our lives from physical or emotional wounds, just like a scar.
But a scar is much more, it marks a memory, a history, a decision, love, strength, pain, sorrow, but overall, some form of healing. Kintsugi shares similarities with how we heal with pride, strength, love and beauty. By using gifts from Mother Earth, it’s a collaborative work of natural materials and she assist its evolution and metamorphosis into its final form. If the artwork is ever broken or damaged, I'm offering to give it another life with the Kintsugi method for as long as I live. After its full use, the piece can return to earth just as we humans do.
Purifying The Soul – The Soul is Responding
The third edition of VONMO STUDIO 2022, the contemporary jewelry exhibition project "Purifying The Soul" curated by Felicia Li, has attracted public attention since its launch on October 4, 2021. 220 artists from 38 countries submitted their "soul objects" by June 10, 2022. After the selection made in a professional and impartial way by the six artists of our international jury - Catarina Silva (Portugal), Hongxia Wang (Denmark), Kim Buick (Denmark), Maria Rosa Franzin (Italy), Wang Kezhen (China) and Zhao Yi (China) - 63 works were chosen for the Qinghai exhibition.
From December 31, 2022 to January 2, 2023, the VONMO Studio team performed performance art and photography on the frozen Qinghai Lake. On the frozen Qinghai Lake after the snowfall, an area of 50 x 4 meters was cleared where curators carried 66 artists' "soul objects" (including selected and jury works) on their bodies, displaying them to the sky and earth with great respect and allowing the artists' voices to echo above Qinghai Lake.
After the difficulties humanity has gone through, we have once again reached a turning point. Now we are back in town in Beijing, offering an offline exhibition, exhibiting even more jewelry works (112 creations by 112 artists from around the world), providing visitors with the opportunity to have a close-up view and understanding of the uniqueness of each work: each artist's perspectives on the soul and the world, their values and beliefs, along with their exquisite techniques of work. This time we will not just superficially discuss what contemporary jewelry is, the boundaries between jewelry and the body, or technical aspects, but we hope that our performance will make people able to understand, beyond life and death, that souls can reach a higher level of "intense love," and these souls are responding now.
Following are the jewelry pieces by AGC authors selected for the project and for this exhibition, which will be held at the halls of LANNG SPACE in Beijing from Feb. 22 to 26:
Ariel Lavian
for more informations click here
Adriana Del Duca
Italia
La mia ricerca è stimolata principalmente dalla esperienza visiva riscontrata durante il periodo della mia educazione e della mia giovinezza vissuta a Caracas dove tra gli arredi urbani - in gran numero- c'erano i lavori di precursori dell'arte ottica e cinetica come Alejandro Otero, Jesùs Soto e Carlos Cruz Diez. I miei lavori sono frutto di un’identità formatasi grazie all’interesse per le arti, la sperimentazione teatrale e l’osservazione della società.
Ho adottato la trasparenza come punto di partenza onde ottenere effetti ottici attraverso l'affiancamento di figure concepite in qualità di sezioni ovvero matrici che una volta assemblate serialmente offrono una visione volumetrica indipendente. Gli effetti ottici talvolta sono ampliati dalla presenza di sagome in metallo lucido che riflettono altre superfici e contribuiscono ad arricchire il linguaggio basato sul movimento e le forme incostanti. Questo processo considera il carattere interattivo del linguaggio grazie alla partecipazione dell'osservatore esterno. Nella collana Monna Lisa ho sperimentato lo stesso processo partendo dalla fine, ovvero sezionando e assemblando una cornice di legno dorata .
E’ dal periodo del lockdown per la pandemia che ho introdotto l’elemento concettuale in questo processo formale secondo un proprio bisogno di comunicare le mie osservazioni su certi argomenti. Un esempio sono le spille "Abbiamo tutto, non abbiamo nulla" , "Non siamo soli", "Fermento". La collezione Infinite Homes, benché in apparenza potrebbe sembrare lontana dai fattori che definiscono le ricerche Transparencia e Kinetci Paper, comprende in essa gli stessi principi quali stabilità e mutamento, ovvero incostanza. Nella collezione Infinite Homes l'uso delle planimetrie sottolinea la stabilità di un valore che va oltre un luogo fisico: il nido. Sulle superfici, gli elementi possono essere mutevoli o raccontare una storia che evolve. A volte anche il perimetro della pianta diventa un chiaro riferimento ad un oggetto lasciando la dimensione piatta per raggiungere la tridimensionalità come nella spilla Virdarama.
“Following the red dot" è ancora una volta una ricerca formale dove gli effetti ottici sono alla base. L'uso della trasparenza cede la scena al nero e al bianco esplorando in maniera sofisticata altri effetti già sperimentati nella collezione Kinetic Paper.
Incontri in AGC: events
After an interesting first interlocutory meeting and session with Mariangela Murgia and Alberto Catalano of Fluxis, more Incontri@AGC are scheduled.
The calendar is continuing through June with the following proposals:
Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023 h.20.30
The "care" of the curator. The role and quality of the curator and the importance, as well as the necessity, of his or her critical stand and research
Incontri@Agc with Maria Rosa Franzin and Thereza Pedrosa
Thursday, 03/16/2023 h.8:30 pm
Will it be ve(t)ro? - Stories and curiosities of glass through the work of forgers
Incontri@Agc with Caterina Zucchi
Thursday 23.03.2023 h.20.30
Join us! - Incontri@Agc in English and Spanish for international and Italian members who would like to speak
Thursday 04.05.2023 h.20.30
Jewelry and the Spirit of Time. A personal look with a bit of disenchantment into the everyday filtered through the history and uniqueness of jewelry of all times and genres
Incontri@Agc with Maria Laura La Mantia
Thursday, 06/29/2023 h.8:30 pm
Nano-explorations and surface narratives. Applications of quantum phenomena in contemporary jewelry.
Incontri@Agc curated by Alice Rendon
We remind you of the email address to which to write for clarifications, suggestions, proposals: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dear Kadri Mälk
Dear Kadri,
Not long ago you were with us in Padua, at the Oratorio of San Rocco.
You accepted the invitation of AGC Associazione Gioiello Contemporaneo to participate in the exhibition on Devotional Jewellery with great joy and with the generosity and kindness that were typical of you.
Through your messages, I was able to perceive your pain, but despite this, you wrote how great your desire was to be there.
Your gaze, your gesture, your important work, will always be with us.
AGC Association
Tallin - Estonia, 27.1.1958 - 1.1.2023
Sogand Nobahar
Iran / Italia
We are all unique in our way with the life we live and the stories we tell. These stories must be heard because they have the power to inspire others. That is the intention behind Nobahar Design Milano. Every design piece is unconventional and created to tell a compelling story because, as human beings, we can connect better in this way.
Nobahar Design Milano tells the story of traditional and modern values coming together from living in Italy and Iran. It combines my background in art, my education in Industrial and Jewelry Design.
The brand was founded in 2017 to express the experiences of a life lived in this chaotic world. The kind of world that stops us from going beyond the ordinary. The kind of world that emphasizes sticking to conventional ways of living. Nobahar Design Milano explores this world to learn and experience more of life. Some say it is unconventional. However, that is Nobahar Design’s way of connecting and inspiring people to live life to the fullest.
As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said: “I want to live happily in a world I don’t understand.”
Is it unconventional? Well, I say, let it be as unconventional as it is!
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Pubblicazioni / Pubblications
Natalia Cellini
Italia
Dopo il diploma mi sono sentita libera di iniziare la mia vera formazione, quella artistica. C’è stata una scuola privata di arti decorative a Roma, un po’ di apprendistato con la mia insegnante, poi ho deciso di aprire il mio studio. Per anni ho eseguito committenze di affreschi che mi hanno consentito di affinare e padroneggiare la tecnica pittorica. Poi ho deciso che volevo provare a non subordinare gli elementi formali ai modelli esterni. Il campo della mia ricerca era quello della memoria, della presenza, dei sedimenti di vita interiore come nuclei generativi. Ogni opera è divenuta una biografia interiore che si compone di terre, sabbia, polvere di marmo, colla, pigmenti che sono insieme il fondo e il corpo sui quali incido al posto di disegnare. Fino a quando c’è stato il vero e proprio incontro con la materia: residui ferrosi, minerali e rocce di una miniera abbandonata. Le tracce cromatiche e tattili di quel territorio, le asperità del suolo, la sacralità di quel luogo mi sono rimaste addosso. Da qui è partita la mia nuova ricerca formale nella realizzazione di gioielli. Da allora amo lavorare con materiali che mi riportano a quel mondo non pretenzioso, alla nobiltà di oggetti essenziali, forgiati a mano, attenta a preservare l’imperfetto. Perché i segni presenti sulla pietra rappresentano la sua biografia. Sono delle cicatrici. Esattamente come quelle sulla nostra pelle, che ci ricordano che abbiamo vissuto: cancellarle significherebbe negare il passaggio del tempo. Che è invece materia primaria del mio lavoro.
After my graduation I started my real training, the artistic one. After attending a private school of decorative arts in Rome I decided to open my own studio in 1996. For several years I had run commissions of frescoes that allowed me to refine and master the pictorial technique. Until I decided I wanted to try not to subordinate the formal elements to external models. My research was that of memory, of presence, of the sediments of inner life as generative nuclei. In recent years, each work has been an inner biography that consists of earth, sand, marble dust, glue; pigments that are both the base and the body on which I engrave instead of drawing.
At one point there was the real encounter with the “matter”: ferrous waste of scrap, rocks and minerals from an abandoned mine area. The chromatic and tactile traces that the environment carried, the roughness of the soil, the sacredness of the earth stuck with me. Hence my new research on the level of forms in jewelry production. Since then I have loved working with materials that take me back to that unpretentious world, to that nobility of hand-forged essential objects.
I wanted to be meticulously careful to preserve the imperfection, because the marks on the stone represent his biography, they are scars. Just like those on our skin, which remind us that we have lived: to erase them would be to deny the passage of time. Which is instead the raw material of my work.
A precious meetings: Giampaolo Babetto. The Entity of Being
The Italian goldsmith of the “Paduan School” Giampaolo Babetto is famous for his jewelry – geometrically distinct shapes arranged into refined entities of extraordinary perfection and beauty. But the artist’s wide-ranging spectrum includes equally furniture design, silverwork, sculptures, liturgical utensils and architecture – even his design drawings have an autonomous character with artistic value.
In addition to Christian iconography, his sources of inspiration include the fresco cycles of Renaissance artist Jacopo da Pontormo, and there are echoes of minimalism, neo-plasticism, neo-constructivism, and “arte programmata/cinetica.”
The Entity of Being shows for the first time an overall view of the versatile virtuoso. The comprehensive catalog section is complemented by four contributors giving exciting insights into the work of this universal artist.
A precious meeting at the Archivio Negroni in Milan: Giampaolo Babetto talks with two of the authors, Andrea Nante and the art gallery owner Thereza Pedrosa, and with the publisher Dirk Allgaier, a refined admirer and disseminator of international contemporary art and modern craft.
Free admission. Limited seating. Reservations on eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/bookcity-sotto-casa-1361719
or writing to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Possibility to follow the event online from this sitoweb:
https://www.bookcitymilano.it/eventi/2022/incontri-preziosi-giampaolo-babetto-lentita-dellessere
Fred Jahn, Friedhelm Mennekes, Andrea Nante, Thereza Pedrosa
BABETTO The Entity of Being / L’Entità dell’Essere/ Die Einheit des Seins,
Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Museo Civico di Asolo (IT) 2022, pp.328
Devotional Jewel's exhibition at the Oratory of San Rocco in Padua
The exhibition entitled Devotional Jewel, will be held at the Oratory of San Rocco in Padua from November 25, 2022 to February 5, 2023.
The project proposed by member Elena Alfonsi attracted great national and international interest and participation. The selection of authors was supervised by Dr. Mirella Cisotto Nalon, former Head of Cultural Activities Sector of the City of Padua.
The theme proposed for the competition developed the participation of invited and selected authors by submitting works made with the use of a wide variety of materials, from metal, charcoal, stones of various types, photographs, textiles organic materials, enamels, lacquers and inks Japanese synthetic materials, plastics, magnets, recycled bricks and more. Sixty-nine authors have been selected, 16 artists invited: Jivan Astfalck, David Bielander, Stephen Bottomley, Helen Britton, Sebastien Carre, Jurgen Eickhoff, Cristina Filipe, Arata Fuchi, Kadri Malk, Judy McCaig, Kazumi Nagano, Ramon Puig Cuyas, Marianne Schliwinski, Alejandra Solar, Tanel Veenre, Silvia Walz.
The exhibited works represent personalities of the authors, tell stories, concepts and emotions.
They come from different countries such as Portugal, Austria, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Denmark, Estonia, Holland, South Africa, Israel, United States, South Korea, Sweden, Libya, Mexico, Japan.
A broad view of the concept and meaning of "Loss" aimed at the Loss, the sudden, total and permanent lack of an affection; but also the destruction of forests, the extinction of animal species and in some works the desire not to want to lose artistic techniques that collect the cultural meaning of a land.
Many authors will be present at the morning press conference on Friday 25 and at the opening at 5 p.m. All works will be illustrated in the catalog.
The event is made possible thanks to the City of Padua-Department of Culture.
Below are the agc members and their works:
Sara Barbanti, Roberta Bernabei, Annarita Bianco, Patrizia Bonati, Jeemin Jamie Chung, Lluís Comín Vilajosana, Corrado De Meo, Laura Forte, Maria Rosa Franzin, Gigi Mariani, Mineri Matsuura, Kazumi Nagano, Sara Progressi, Anna Retico, Carla Riccoboni and Silvia Sandini, Stefano Rossi, Chiara Scarpitti, Claudia Steiner, Yiota Vogli, Caterina Zanca.
Patrizia Bonati
Carla Riccoboni e Silvia Sandini
The Grassi Museum of Applied Arts honored Gabi Veit
The Grassi Museum of Applied Arts (Preis der Grassifreunde) honored the work of our member Gabi Veit by purchasing her pieces for the museum's permanent collection.
The artist tells:
"In the spring of 2020 I picked hazelnuts in the garden.
I was fascinated by the irregular holes in the hazelnuts. I also found nuts split in half.
Research revealed that hazelnuts are split in half by squirrels and that the holes in the hazelnuts are caused by mice. The gnawing marks on the edge of the hole are clearly visible. So each animal has its own way of getting to the hazelnut, to the treasure.
I selected the hazelnuts, cleaned them, removed the inner skin and drilled two holes.
I strung the hazelnuts like pearls in two chains, one for each type of animal.
Now it was up to me to create a tribute to the animals, my assistants as I call them.
I made a necklace of abstract shapes with holes, resembling animals with eyes or ears. I connected these pieces with eyelets. I left the oxidation that occurred during soldering. I found that the indefinite gray-brown tone resembles the color of the animals.
The three necklaces were created in this moment of stillness. The vision of the obvious, the marvelous in the small was sharpened. Nature always plays an important role in my work, animals were for the first time the focus of my attention."
Schatzkammer (treasury)
AG925 silver necklace, 57 individual pieces cast by lost wax, 2021
Hazelnut chain with holes gnawed by mice, strung with strand of red pearls, 2020
Necklace of hazelnuts split in half by squirrels and strung with strand of pink pearls, 2020
