New York City Jewelry Week: Inclusion and diversity

Together with important partners such as Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), suggestive venues and prestigious interventions, there has been talks of jewelry touching various themes:  starting from sustainability with a symposium called Full Circle: A Responsible Jewelry Cycle, which was a one day crash course on the sustainability challenges that face the global jewelry trade, to a conversation about the Effects of Ecommerce on the Jewelry Business, until Jewelry and Fashion presentation on the history of costume and fashion jewelry by eminent scholar Deanna Farneti Cera at The Museo of Arts and Design.

In addition to conversations and meetings, the selection of exhibitions and installations has seen the participation and inclusion of established and non-established artists.

Among the various initiatives, Salon 94 Design presented an exhibition of rings by Karl Fritsch, Rings Without End: Karl Fritsch, which read as miniature sculptures. He playfully mixes high and low materials, giving equal billing to diamonds, rubies, plastic pearls and glass gemstones.

Talking about rings, the Lalaounis Boutique presented an exhibition which explores a range of aesthetic and conceptual ideas between studio and fine jewelry: Rings: 1957 – 2019, Legends and Tales from Athens to New York. It includes studio finger rings selected by Helen Drutt and organized by Elizabeth Essner; rings from the permanent collection of the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum; and a selection of new creations designed by Maria Lalaouni.

92Y presented an exhibition of photographs and face jewelry by 2019 Artist In Residence, Claudia Lepik. The Estonian jeweler plays with the tensions in metal to hide and reveal parts of the body, exploring themes of strength and fragility.

Traveling to New York from Munich, Germany, Finding Dodo presented work by four emerging European artists: Jelizaveta Suska (SE), Marion Delarue (FR), Märta Mattsson (SE), and Lore Langendries (NL) at the suggestive shop FleursBella
. Expect mother of pearl, amber, dried insects, and fur—these artists transform natural materials into modern curiosities.

Tom Dixon Studio presented a solo show by jeweler Biba Schutz who displayed jewelry representing the stories from her 25 years as a self taught inquisitive maker. Just so happens, wearable jewelry is her vocabulary. Her voice is influenced by the spaces, shadows, textures and her urban environment.

The number of initiatives, exhibitions, meetings and presentations far exceeds this small personal selection, and is surprising for its dynamism and diversity, for its ability to touch current themes and promote different aspects such as education, the spread of jewelry in a broad and inclusive sense.

Experimental jewelry, fine jewelry, studio jewelry, design and fashion, coexist in a multiform and stratified initiative, which, just like the city that hosts it, does not allow borders, while making inclusion and enhancement of diversity its strong point.

Image Credits

1 - Rings: 1957 – 2019, Legends and Tales from Athens to New York. Selection by Helen Drutt at Lalaounis Boutique.

2 - #HEREWEARE: The Marketplace at The William Vale. Left to right: Candide, Aziza Handcrafted, Candide.

3 - About Face: Claudia Lepik a t 92Y.

4 - TimeLine: 25 Years of Work by Biba Schutz at Tom Dixon.

5 - Finding Dodo a t FleursBella.

6 - Rings Without End: Karl Fritsch at Salon 94. Courtesy of Salon 94 Design. Image credit: Justin Borbely.