20/20
Celebrating Twenty Years at Salts Mill: A Fantastical Array of International Art Jewellery
14th July - 25th Sept 2016
Invitation to the exhibition 20/20
20/20
Art Jewellery from Around the Globe
A vase that’s not a vase; street art into beating heart; cannibalizing rings, and invisible spoons!! Just some of the visual conundrums that await the curious visitor to 20/20 in an exhibition of work by twenty international art jewellers marking twenty years of Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery at Salts Mill.
Put on your specs, get out your magnifying glass, take part in our Who Made Me? quiz matching up cryptic clues with work by jewellers that love to confound expectations. Discover the provocations and pleasures to be experienced on looking at art jewellery really closely with 20/20 vision!
With an international reputation for showcasing and creatively engaging the public in the best in radical jewellery, Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery celebrates her twentieth birthday with a fantastical array of art jewellery selected from around the globe.
When is a vase not a vase? When it is also a necklace! Jing Yang from China presents her provocative series ‘I am not a vase’ challenging traditional notions of beauty. She says: “in China, a beautiful yet stupid woman is dubbed 'a vase'- gorgeous, but hollow.” Jing’s vases break apart to become necklaces taking on new forms and meanings.
Award winning artist Carina Shoshtary, of German Iranian origin collects thousands of shards of graffiti – an extraordinary material which she transforms and transplants into new emotionally charged jewellery such as her ‘Heart Tree’ neckpiece – a powerful convergence of humanity and nature.
Sophie Hanagarth, Switzerland/France, winner of the coveted Herman Hoffman prize with work in museum collections worldwide, including the V&A, seduces with her ‘Lipstick’ rings which gobble up fingers – a celebration of sensuality and a reflection on its darker side.
Tithi Kutchamuch, Thailand, an MA graduate of The Royal College of Art collects throwaway plastic spoons from everywhere she visits in the world. Travels with my Spoon a series of darkly oxidised silver flower brooches is the result, but can you spot the spoons? “Transforming them by melting and casting using precious metals the integrity of the spoon is re-written, its new life is born, disposable becomes collectable, the mass produced becomes a unique one-off.”
Yojae Lee, turns her magnifying glass onto the abundant vivid insect life of her native South Korea presenting us with outsize facsimiles of praying mantis, grasshoppers and beetles exquisitely crafted from frog skin, leather, silver and clay – delicate brooches that crawl onto the wearer revealing up close and personal their strangeness and hidden beauty.
20/20 is an amazingly diverse exhibition drawing together the best in art jewellery from around the world also including Estonia, Japan, Colombia, Portugal, Czech Republic and Menorca - all which rewards closer scrutiny! Also featuring work by: Hee-ang Kim, South Korea; Deborah Rudolph, Germany; Akiko Kurihara, Japan; Christoph Straube, Germany; Esther Suares Ruiz, Colombia; Ignasi Cavaller, Spain; Julia Baudler, Germany; Niklas Link, Germany; Thanh Truc Nguyen, Germany; Nils Hint, Estonia; Patricia Domingues, Portugal; Makiko Mitsunari, Japan; Lucie Houdkova, Czech Republic; Klara Sipkova, Czech Republic; Julie Decubber, France.
Kath Libbert, the gallery's founder says: ‘it has been a privilege to be situated in this very famous Victorian mill – a beacon of contemporary art and design including the world’s largest collection of work by David Hockney – a perfect place from which to introduce radical art jewellery to a wide range of visitors!”
