On and Off: Jewelry in the Wider Cultural Field

Edited by Benjamin Lignel

Softcover, 152 pages.
Published 2016, Art Jewelry Forum. Limited printing.

State secretary Madeline Albright is famous for inviting world leaders to “read her pins”: these pins provided running commentaries – in turn trenchant or compassionate – on the geopolitical situation and hand, and have become textbook example of jewelry’s agency in the public arena. Jewelry will meddle in human affairs. It will bear witness to transfers of authority, seal alliances, stand proud over your scholastic achievements or discreetly signals that, no, not tonight, thank you very much. And of course, human affairs will inform the conception, intended use and abuse of jewelry: contemporary makers, in particular, are defined by the range and inclusiveness of their cultural baggage. This conversation between incorporated social norms and artistic intentions is the subject of Art Jewelry Forum’s next publication: a collection of 30 short essays on jewelry in the wider cultural realm. These essays, in the spirit of the age, touch upon sex, domination, self-identification, territory, and death. These essays invite some of the meaty subjects of human affairs at the jewelry table: cultural appropriation, social engineering, political propaganda, or jewelry-mediated empowerment. About half of the essays will analyze individual works, while the other half will engage with jewelry’s agency in the social, political, and private spheres. Includes essays by Rutger Emmelkamp, Julie Ewington, Mònica Gaspar, Stephen Knott, Marthe LeVan, Baptiste Lignel, Jillian Moore, Stephen Mulqueen, Elizabeth Murphy, Kevin Murray, Kerianne Quick, Suzanne Ramljak, Amina Rizwan, Damian Skinner, Emily Stoehrer, Timothy Information Limited, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Marilyn Zapf, Artus de Lavilléon (Illustrator), Nathalie Mornu (Assisted by), David Beytelmann, Sara MacVane (Translator), Nigel Borell, Cécile Bulté, Monika Brugger, Susan Cohn, Anna Conticello, Liesbeth den Besten