A recap of our experience in Munich Jewellery Week 2016

Art gallery Putti was in Munich for a few days at the end of March. Munich Jewellery Week is a bundle of exhibitions and jewellery relate events that take place around the city centre for a week. Munich Jewellery Week runs concurrent with the annual Handwerk & Design expo where visitors are able to visit booths of many craftsmen and jewellery artists. It also hosts key exhibitions like Schmuck and Talente. Schmuck is a contemporary jewellery forum that enjoys a worldwide reputation as an international exhibition and it is the eldest exhibition of contemporary jewellery work in the world as it takes place since 1959. It combines works of established artists and promising newcomers in the area of contemporary jewellery design and is the meeting place for collectors, jewellery lovers and museum curators from Germany and abroad.  This yearly happening in Munich is by far the most significant event on contemporary jewellery’s calendar, therefore Art gallery Putti has been going there for a few years already to meet with artists and other people within the industry, to find new interesting talents and to see all the beautiful jewellery that artists have created and curators have gathered and presented in interesting and engaging exhibitions. We want to thank Current Obsession for releasing the new edition of CURRENT OBSESSION PAPER with a complete guide to Munich Jewellery Week that helped us to create our own plan for the few days that we were there. Though, as always, it was quite difficult to choose which events to visit during the days we were in Munich.

We would like to highlight the best experiences we had (keep in mind that we saw only a part of all the events):

• “The Meet” was a very interesting and engaging symposium organized by Art Jewelry Forum. We especially loved the first part where a panel of collectors discussed how curators select works for exhibitions, and how do museums decide to acquire them. The panel consisted of Susan Cummins, David Bielander, Liesbeth den Besten, and Petra Hölscher, the discussion was led by Benjamin Lignel. The discussion touched upon a few very interesting topics and we would love to hear a more elaborate opinions sometime in the future.
• “Shelf life” displayed works by work by 33 makers, staff and students of Central Saint Martins, BA Jewellery Design course. There were some really special and interesting pieces. We loved an unusual take on jewellery, in form of video by Stacey Huang.
• David Bielander was our favourite amongst all of the presentation we saw and visited during Munich Jewellery Week. His exhibition “Cashboards” was something truly special. The idea and ability that it takes to create jewellery from gold in a way that it looks like an effortless project made by light cardboard – this fascinated us.
• “(IM)PRINT” presented works that addressed different interpretations of the acts of publishing. These works displayed different takes on the connection between the languages of jewellery typography, editing, producing. We saw some interesting perspectives on how humans perceive date and information they see.
• The ladies from The Dialogue Collective did not disappoint with “The Royal Appointment”, as always. They simply have the ability to create an amazing atmosphere where the work is presented in a very beautiful and also engaging way. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. They make sure that the visitors have the ability to discuss the theme of the presentation and each piece with its maker, simultaneously creating the feeling that nothing should be taken too seriously and the most important thing is to enjoy ourselves.
• “American Gothic” established a display that lived up to its name – it had some truly American (beer pong!) and truly gothic elements. The display was a great back ground to the varied pieces that had some fresh ideas.
• David Clarke and Bettina Speckner surprised us with the beauty and depth that we saw in the works as well as the presentation in the wonderful Galerie Christian Pixis. Speckner`s jewellery has such intricate details, polished to perfection. Each piece tells its own magical story. The works were presented on old, antique furniture pieces which helped to communicate the pieces excellently.
• “Everyday Epics” in Kunstpavillon had gathered great artists with wonderful pieces.  Again, we were struck by a different form of communicating the jewellery – this time it was an art work by Jing He – a photo of “Potential pin”. The trip made us think and discuss a lot about the boarders of jewellery where it meets different art forms.
• “The Box” was a very interesting project that we were impatient to see. The creators sent the artists a box of selected objects – CDs, erasers, towels and envelopes. It was so interesting to see how the jewellery designers have tackled this task. We especially loved the works by Reka Lorincz, we are always surprised and amused by her ideas. This time she collaborated with her favourite artists from other fields of art, and the result was wonderful.