Thanks to Klimt02 for this post.

At the age of 35 she knew she was good

Walker’s jewellery is delightfully risky, a poetry of found objects treated with serious intent as well as playful humour.In the face of Walker’s willingness to transform pretty much anything into jewellery, I find myself scurrying to keepup. It is an exhilarating ride if you can accept the terms on which Walker bases her practice, and if you are happy to keep bumping into the limits of the preconceptions you hold about what jewellery is. One thing I have never struggled with is Walker’s commitment and sense of purpose. And I have never had a problem seeing how Walker’s jewellery remains jewellery, no matter what crazy stunts it might seem to be pulling. Unwearable, the title of her book, nicely points to her aggressive challenge to tradition on a material, conceptual and sometimes even practical level. Some of Walker’s jewellery is pretty unwearable, but the fact that we keep asking ourselves what would happen if we put it on is important. That is the connection to jewellery that Walker holds as central to her practice. The Rubbish brooches make this point well. In 2004 Walker wrote that ‘I worked with some materials from the rubbish bin in my workshop. I wouldn’t usually do this as for a material to actually reach the rubbish bin, really means it is rubbish.’ Rules exist, otherwise how could a material be judged and placed into the bin in the first place? But it is marvellously typical that Walker can’t leave limits alone, even ones she creates herself. It would be possible for rubbish to be mistaken for a Walker brooch but this is not because her jewellery is artless. It’s because found objects can sometimes take on the right qualities to become a good example of her work. There’s plenty of bite in Walker’s work. Sure, that is just a bad pun to allow me to introduce the brooch made out of a stack of plastic vampire teeth, but this is exactly the kind of object that keeps me interested in Walker’s jewellery. Conceptually it is part of Walker’s ongoing investigation of the readymade, of what can be transformed into jewellery, and what kind of intervention is required to make it happen. This is a pretty minimal recipe: just lots of teeth, simply stacked together, and fixed in place by a wire that also allows the stack to be worn. It’s simple, but the end result of a process that has been refined over a decade. But even more striking, this brooch is funny and crazy. Protruding from the wearer’s chest, this is affronting and foolish at the same time. It’s an act of agression that has no teeth, all bark and no bite. It’s funny, clearly a joke, but as a piece of jewellery it is also serious. Walker wants us to laugh, act like it doesn’t matter, but also make the ultimate commitment and put it on, take it seriously enough to wear it. This is like a joke that you don’t quite understand; if you laugh, is it at your own expense? Since I can’t determine exactly what she means, I have to keep checking my response, thinking about it, changing my mind. Which means her jewellery really does have teeth after all.

by Dr Damian Skinner

Image: Vaune Mason “Eat Me”

Exhibiting Artists:
Roseanne Bartley, Kate Barton, Rachel Bell, Pauline Bern, Trevor Byron, Barry Clarke, Peter Deckers, Jane Dodd, Ilse-Marie Erl, Sharon Fitness, Frejj, Sheridan Kennedy, Ross Malcolm, Vaune Mason, Craig McIntosh, David McLeod, Karen Michaud, Tatjana Panyoczki, Tania Patterson, Cheryl Sills, Frances Stachl, Mia Straka, Blanche Tilden, Lisa Walker, Lisa West, Anna Whitley

Celebrating the abundance of exceptional comtemporary jewellery currently being produced in New Zealand and Australia.

Thu, 7 May 09 – Wed, 27 May 09
Masterworks Gallery, 77 Ponsonby Road, Auckland
www.masterworksgallery.com

Robert Baines

Lisa Walker

Sally Marsland

Maria Cristina Bergesio, curator. Lucca Preziosa is the prestigious European exhibition devoted to contemporary research jewellery. The project began in 2005, and was conceived, organized and coordinated by Le Arti Orafe, since 1985 international school for contemporary jewellery in Italy.
The 2009’s edition of Lucca Preziosa could be considered an attempt to approach the complex theme of beauty in the research jewellery.

In the commercial jewellery the main aim is to give beauty to the person that will wear jewels, this is its first function. The jewel is an object that is giving a codified beauty and that of course have to respect rules and canons.
This is not happening in the word of research jewellery. The jewel is an aesthetic work for itself and is an expression of a specific artistic choice. Moreover it is an empathic work that requires an active attitude of the public, a more reflective look, an observation of its peculiarities, shapes, materials, contents, provocations.
The aim of the exhibition is to give an idea of the wide range of various researches in act in the jewellery as an art form.

To explore this stratified field the exhibition is thought as an itinerary built up around key-words coming from the lexicon of aesthetics.

The jewels are selected as visualizations of an aesthetic concept that is giving to the public the possibility to focus on a certain aspects of the artist’s research. In this way each work represent a particular declension of the beauty’s concept.

Moreover looking at the exhibition as a whole, it could be possible to see the metamorphosis and the erosion of the classic beauty’s ideals from the ’60 till today. As the visual arts also research jewellery records the opening and the breaking of canons, introducing the shade of beauty: chaos, deformations, imperfections.

Cutting the mirror is a metaphor, giving a suggestion to the public regarding the fact that today there is no more an unique concept of beauty, but complex and stratified conceptions.
The exhibition, organized in a chronological order (following the birth date of the artist), will start with the works a masters that represent the classical beauty, in the sense of harmony and measure.

We are proud to announce the fourth edition of Lucca Preziosa, the prestigious annual exhibition devoted to contemporary research jewellery. The project is conceived, organized and coordinated by Le Arti Orafe, the most important school of contemporary jewellery in Italy.

The 2009’s edition, “Cutting the mirror, an aesthetic lexicon”, is organized in cooperation and partnership with the reputated Indian company Ganjam Nagappa & Son, Bangalore.

The exhibition will first be presented in New Delhi, from 8th to 20th of January 2009, in the venue of the Italian Embassy. This will be the very first exhibition of research jewellery in that country.

After the frightful events of Mumbai our Indian partner, Mr. Ganjam had to take the decision to cancel the exhibition in India, and postpone the event to the next springtime, depending of the evolution of the situation in the country.

We express to the Ganjam staff and more in general to India’s peoples our solidarity in this very difficult moment.
A selection of the exhibition will be showed at Inhorgenta fair, Munich, in February 2009, and finally the full exhibition will land in Lucca, from 23rd of April to the 17th of May 2009.

Venues:
Preview, Inhorgenta fair, 20th to 24th of February
Lucca, 23rd April to 17th of May, 2009
New Delhi, Springtime 2009

Thanks to Klimt02

Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery

Fran Allison, Andrea Daly, Peter Deckers, Karl Fritsch, Caroline Gore, Gavin Hitchings, Erik Kuiper, Sean O’Connell, and Lisa Walker

LIKE is a curatorial experiment that explores interpretation and translation across different artistic fields and media. This project was the initiative of Nelson based artist and curator, Stella Chrysostomou and it is framed as a scientific experiment into the processes of making.
The experiment began with the selection of an object that was simple and geometric but ambiguous in shape and function. This object was then described in written form by leading New Zealand poet, Bill Manhire. This description was then sent to nine national and international jewellers – Fran Allison, Andrea Daly, Peter Deckers, Karl Fritsch, Caroline Gore, Gavin Hitchings, Erik Kuiper, Sean O’Connell, and Lisa Walker – who were asked to interpret and ‘decipher’ the object based on Manhire’s text. This exhibition presents the original object along with the resulting pieces made by the nine jewellers, and Bill Manhire’s text, in an intriguing display that encourages viewers to closely examine the creative process of object making.

Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery