NOW
& THEN
A
remarkable exhibition of contemporary and antique jewellery exploring
the timeless themes of power and politics, life and death, laughter
and love.
Now
& Then is an exhibition borne out of collaboration
between the renowned Kath Libbert contemporary jewellery gallery
at Salts Mill in Saltaire and Harrogate-based antique jewellery
specialist Susan Rumfitt who, for the past three years, has shared
her passion and knowledge with millions of viewers as one of the
jewellery valuers on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. Susan is
also a regular lecturer for the National Association of Decorative
and Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS).
Throughout
history and across civilizations jewellery has had far greater significance
than simply being a means of personal adornment, frequently being
a powerful and symbolic public declaration of private pain, joy,
status or beliefs.
Now
& Then places an incredible collection of contemporary
work by leading jewellers from around the world alongside stunning
antique pieces from the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries - curated
around four key themes: ‘Sentiment & Sex’,
‘Power & Politics’, ‘The
Lighter Side’ and ‘Memento
Mori’- death and mourning.
Highlights
of Now & Then include:
Work by Adam Paxon – joint winner of the prestigious
£30,000 Jerwood Applied Arts Prize 2007:Jewellery. Adam will
also be speaking about his work at a special Collectors’
Event at the Gallery on 16th September, alongside Susan
Rumfitt.
Antique jewellery from circa 1800 to 1940 including exquisite
cameos and engaging Memento Mori jewellery.
Collections from 16 leading contemporary jewellers and
designers from around the world, many making their UK debut; work
will include pendants made with human hair, medals for ‘Everyday
Heroes and Heroines’, mechanical brooches, smashed gemstones,
animals in crocheted clothes and jewels, along with symbols of modern-day
mourning and ethical beliefs.
‘Lingam’ pendant by renowned Dutch jeweller
and Professor of Jewellery, Ruudt Peters.
Anti-War Medals loaned by Velvet Da Vinci, San Francisco
- one of the USA’s top jewellery galleries.
Sentiment
& Sex
Here we celebrate jewels with the power to seduce - or even to scandalize
and look at the language of love, lust and longing – as expressed
through jewels and stones. Jerwood prize-winning jeweller Adam Paxon
creates bold acrylic jewellery which takes its influence from organic
forms and nature’s colourful language of warning and courtship.
His vibrant pieces, with names such as ‘Squirming' ring and
‘Spondylitis' neckpiece often attach to the body or clothing
in unusual ways, giving new approaches to wearability - and a new
meaning to ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’!
By
crushing and pulverizing precious gemstones such as sapphires, rubies
and emeralds, then reforming them using molten gold or silver, Kelvin
J Birk creates his intriguing rings in which the cooled, set metal
holds or encloses the fragments of stones. Often working with second-hand
or inherited pieces of jewellery, this process retains the sentiment
of the original in the unique ‘freeform’ piece that
emerges and expresses Kelvin’s belief that ‘nothing
is constant, everything is transient … loss gives rise to
new things … the constant circle of creation and destruction
is unstoppable’. Now & Then’s examples of beautiful
REGARD brooches and rings show how, by using a sequence of Ruby,
Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby and Diamond, the Victorians used
stones in their own way to capture sentiments and messages. Similarly,
floral bouquet brooches, often given as romantic gifts, were used
by lovers to express sentiments such as love (rose), kiss (mistletoe),
innocence (daisy). By beautiful contrast, the internationally renowned
jeweller, Georg Dobler, shows his sumptuous brooches – silver
and gold cast branches, foliage, flowers and fruit – rich
and heavy with decadent stones.
Power
& Politics
Pearls are probably the earliest natural object to
have been prized as gems: the Ancient Egyptians were buried with
theirs; to the Romans they were the ultimate symbol of wealth and
status; brave Knights wore pearls to protect them in battle; and
during the Renaissance laws decreed that only the nobility were
allowed to wear them! Now & Then celebrates both the beauty
and the power of pearls with examples of gorgeous antique brooches
and necklaces, alongside Australian designer Laura Deakin’s
‘Dishonest Pearls’ - half circles made from wood filler
into which a pearl is pushed, then removed, leaving the lustre lining
the ‘shell shaped’ beads - a contemporary re-working
of the familiar.In ancient times, cameos - literally, a stone carved
in relief - were used to display faith or loyalty to a monarch;
the Romans wore them as amulets or charms and ‘Renaissance
men’ wore them as hat badges to emphasise their power and
wealth. Given as gifts by Elizabeth I, collected by Catherine the
Great and a favourite of the Empress Josephine, cameos were especially
popular amongst the Victorians. In contrast to examples of fine
Victorian pearls and cameos, both traditional symbols of materialism
and status, Now & Then presents contemporary pieces such as
the large, carved ‘Lingam’ pendant by well-known Dutch
jeweller Ruudt Peters; an entwined collection of five ‘stylised
penises’, this work reflects the spiritual beliefs of Eastern
cultures in which the ‘Lingam’ is worshipped in order
to bring good life – rather than having the Western associations
with sex, power and pornography. Traditional medals awarded for
‘services to King and country’ are shown alongside Danish
designer Inger Larsen’s ‘Medals for Everyday Heroes
and Heroines’ - she takes the classical cross, crown or star
shapes and creates outsize humorous versions in white acrylic and
coloured ribbons - medals which can be pinned to your chest, bestowed
upon your own hero, or hung on your wall! Exhibits by Susan Matsche
(‘War Kills’) and Emily Bullock (‘Peace Piece’)
are on loan from the powerful ‘Anti-War Medals’ international
touring exhibition curated in 2005 by one of the USA’s most
prestigious jewellery galleries, San Francisco’s Velvet da
Vinci. Some 200 works by artists from 16 countries represented their
protest against the War in Iraq. The British Museum and the Imperial
War Museum have both purchased pieces from the exhibition.The use
of jewellery as a sign of protest is explored with ‘Suffragette
Jewellery’, set with jewels such as amethysts, peridots, tourmalines,
emeralds and pearls, reflecting the Sufragette movements symbolic
colours of green, white and violet (said by some to stand for Give
Women the Vote). A modern-day campaigner, Silke Spitzer, shows her
collection of bold brooches made using fair traded ‘ethical’
gold, linoleum and wood, focusing on issues of sustainability.
The
Lighter Side
Jewellery designed to make you smile! Felieke van der Leest combines
her training as a gold and silversmith, her childhood love of crochet
and needlework and her passion for animals (she grew up next to
a zoo) to create her colourful, surreal jewellery. Little plastic
animals are adorned with tiny crocheted clothes and their own jewels
or embellishments – from Emperor Penguin Freddie adorned with
a Polar Bear Claw pendant, to a lion cub with a gold saucepan hat
and an extravagant gold ruff for a mane, or the mother polar bear
having a baby! Felieke also makes quirky crocheted charm bracelets,
which are shown alongside their antique equivalent, traditionally
hung with charms to remind the owner of happy times or holidays.Lindsey
Mann’s childhood was spent surrounded by her dad’s deconstructed
collection of gadgets and mechanical or motorized ‘things’
– bits of which crept into the house and mingled with everyday
belongings. This influence can be seen in her charming brooches
and necklaces, which combine patterned aluminium, precious metals
and found materials; some are ‘nonsensical mechanical inventions’,
all of them, she hopes, trigger vague or familiar memories. For
David Bielander, ‘wearers of jewellery move in the open, they
are the exhibitions, they replace the wall, they are part of the
work’. His ‘jewellery’ takes the shape of lips,
a pearl pig, scampi polonaise or shiny black slugs – to be
worn as and where the wearer chooses. Light, humorous, spontaneous
– his aim through his work is to ‘provoke astonished
reactions, make signals, create wonder, or simply make someone smile’.
Examples of antique jewellery based on animal forms show the lighter-hearted
side of life in the past – with fun pieces such as a cockerel
tie pin set with diamonds and enamel, circa 1890.
Memento
Mori
‘Not lost but gone before’ – our
response to death and loss has long been expressed through jewellery,
from the shapes and colours, to the motifs and materials. Traditionally
worn to symbolise our own mortality, the mourning of a loved one
or to record the passing of time, examples of Memento Mori jewellery
include Georgian skull rings and sparkling Forget-Me-Not lockets
and brooches. Taking their cues from such tradition, contemporary
jewellers Constanze Schreiber and Claudia Stebler have created quirky
representations not only of loss through death, but also through
the ending of a relationship, divorce or leaving behind a place
or a person - with the associated feelings of sadness, rage, relief
– even joy! Using symbols such as skulls and skeletons, cross
bones and coffins, they communicate this range of emotions through
pieces such as Stebler’s ‘Bury Your X’ brooch
and Schreiber’s ‘dead head’ brooch, delicate ‘in
memoriam’ pendant and a chain of pearls to symbolize tears
- black ones which are hollow and light, white ones which, on closer
inspection, turn out to be tiny little skulls. A lock of hair has
always symbolized romantic remembrance of a loved one, but it was
the Victorians who made its use into a highly fashionable art form,
either encasing hair in bejewelled rings and lockets or weaving
or plaiting it into whole pieces such as earrings, pendants and
crosses. Contemporary jeweller Melanie Bilenker uses up to 2,000
of her own hairs to create each one of the deceptively simple scenes
depicted in her pendants and brooches – from reading a book
to taking a bath – the minutiae of daily life is captured
and treasured.
Now
& Then runs from 17th July to 28th September 2008.
Salts Mill is open weekdays from 10am – 5.30pm and weekends
10am – 6pm. For further information call 01274 599790.
