OBSESSED!

OBSESSED! unites the best jewellery-related events – museum and gallery exhibitions, talks, fairs, book presentations and artist open studios – into one intriguing programme put together by Current Obsession.

The second, 2019 edition of OBSESSED! Jewellery Festival brings together independent artists, galleries and cultural institutions from across the Netherlands in celebration of Jewellery. United.

Jewellery. United. is a new paradigm in jewellery discourse. It broadens the scope of what is seen as jewellery in relation to other creative fields and bridges various genres within the jewellery field itself.

The inaugural edition of OBSESSED! ran throughout the whole month of November 2017 in Amsterdam, Appeldoorn, Den Bosch, Den Haag, Leiden and Nijmegen and participants were: Rijksmuseum, CODA Museum, Design Museum Den Bosch, Volkenkunde Museum, Sieraad Art Jewellery Fair, Galerie Ra, Galerie Marzee, Galerie Door, Het Cromhouthuis, Stichting Sieraden Collecties.

Among the various and incredibly interesting initiatives that are taking place, It is worthy to mention the new space established and supported by Galerie Marzee in Amsterdam, named INTRO, that will provide a space exclusively for recently graduated jewellery students from around the world to show and sell their work for a period of three years. INTRO will be curated, in three year cycles, by graduates and/or undergraduates from international schools and academies. Alumni from the Jewelry + Metalsmithing faculty at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, USA, have been asked to take charge for the inaugural period.

INTRO will also present a series of smaller editions by each new artist, offering affordable pieces that reflect the mood and preoccupations of their larger body of work. The 2017 and 2018 graduates who were part of our previous Marzee for Starters project will now join INTRO for the remainder of their three year involvement.

As far as Museum initiatives is concerned, the exhibition ‘Body Control at Museum Arnhem – Jewellery and Fashion at the boundaries of the human body’ staged in De Kerk from the end of October 2019 until late January 2020, focuses on the human body. From Iris van Herpen’s anatomical couture to Katja Prins’ hybrid jewellery, from the “body-filling” jewellery made by Lauren Kalman to Anouk Wipprecht’s technological creations: the body as wearer, but also as image determiner.

On the basis of several themes like protection, upgrading, (im)perfection, (im)mortality and symbiosis, the exhibition Body Control reflects on a range of questions regarding the malleability of the human body in a 

philosophising, poetic, humorous or ironic way. Body Control includes works by both established and young (inter)national design talent – an exhibition with impact, on the interface between jewellery and fashion design, that will appeal to the general public as well as professionals.

Full schedule here: www.obsessedwithjewellery.com

Image Credits

• Ana Rajcevic, Animal – The Other Side of Evolution, 2012
• Campaign image by Carol Civre Model is wearing jewellery by Sinéad O’Dwyer (23:16:26 (2019). Photo: Ottilie Landmark) and Jennifer Crupi (Ornamental Hands: Figure 2 (2012) en Figure 4 (2014). Photo: Christian Luis).
• Flora Miranda – Stardust Gown (_Sidereal_Ethereal_Immatereal_ collection) – 2014. Photo Gökay Çatak.
• Iris van Herpen, Shift Souls, 2019. Photo Filippo Fior
• Mi-Ah Rodiger, Cochlea, 2010, photo Jorrit Pfeifer
• Valerie James and Luke Towne, pictured here with a selection of work from the new gallery, are the first RISD graduates who will run INTRO. Valerie is wearing the necklace Flute and Gather by Kelly Temple (San Diego State University) and Luke is wearing Estonian Academy of the Arts graduate Merlin Meremaa’s necklace On the Verge of Fragility II.

About the Contributing Writer