Celebrating Eighty: Art In The Hand

This March the exhibition Celebrating Eighty: Art in the Hand at the Goldsmiths’ Centre unites eighty contemporary art medals by students from more than a dozen UK art colleges with work by renowned Iranian sculptor, jeweller, writer and designer Parviz Tanavoli and his former students in celebration of his 80th Birthday.

All exhibitors have been invited to participate in the British Art Medal Society’s 24th Student Medal Project. A surprising and challenging medium for artists and viewers alike, the modern art medal has its roots in the Renaissance tradition of making medals as hand-sized works of art.

Each year over one hundred students from art colleges across the UK - plus one invited academy from a foreign country – submit their finished works to the British Art Medal Society’s Project, which aims to foster the art of bronze casting, to be judged and selected for display. BAMS seeks to encourage and promote the art of medal making and awards a number prizes. Stephanie Holt from Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery won the Grand First Prize for her art medal Weight of the World in 2016 (image on the right). This year’s prize winners will be on display for the first time at the Goldsmiths’ Centre.

Parviz Tanavoli has been a pioneering figure in Iranian art since the 1960s, 

working across a number of different media, exhibiting widely, and teaching. Parviz Tanavoli has been a pioneering figure in Iranian art since the 1960s, working across a number of different media, exhibiting widely, and teaching. Over the last decade he has created numerous art medals such as his piece Hand on Hand (image on the left). The exhibition will showcase a selection of his modern art medals, some of which are in the collection of the British Museum, as well as a small selection of his jewellery. His students have gone on to become artists and teachers, writers and print-makers, and a number of their medals will be shown with Tanavoli’s work, providing a wonderful forum to view work by their UK contemporaries and to join an international discussion of the importance of the art medal.

As renowned silversmith, jeweller and medal maker, Julian Cross explained, “The medal, as object, with all its constraints, can act like a half open door. We, the viewers, are on one side looking through the opening. But the artist has a job to do on the other side, to engage, communicate and express. The narrower the gap in the door makes the artist rise all the more to the challenge, working harder and smarter to be seen and heard. This is when the art medal comes into its element; it can be a highly charged object, beautiful or ugly, it can appear to be as soft as watercolours, as sad as a lock of hair, as violent as an explosion, as political as a revolution, it can sing, shout, whisper, cry and laugh.”

Philip Atwood, President of the BAMS and the British Museum’s Keeper of Coins and Medals commented, “We at the British Art Medal Society are delighted that these medals can be shared with a wider public through this exhibition at the Goldsmiths’ Centre. The display of contemporary art medals from Britain and Iran makes for an exciting juxtaposition of new and challenging works. For Iranian art students, medal-making is a relatively new phenomenon, introduced following the lead of acclaimed sculptor Parviz Tanavoli. Most students in Britain’s art colleges are also new to the medium. The exhibition reveals the extraordinarily wide range of responses to this under-valued medium by young artists from both countries – and also pays tribute to the achievements of Tanavoli. We are grateful to the Iran Heritage Foundation and the Goldsmiths’ Company for supporting this exhibition.”

An exhibition celebrating contemporary art medals, curated by the British Art Medal Society,

Exhibition Run
23 March – 20 April 2017

Cost
Admission is free and the exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks and handling sessions. For more information on the exhibition and the talk series, visit
www.goldsmiths-centre.org/whats-on

Venue
The Goldsmiths’ Centre, Clerkenwell, London

Sponsored by The Iran Heritage Foundation and The Goldsmiths’ Company