Robert Baines: Living Treasure and Fabulous Follies

Everything in his creative research started when The Metropolitan Museum of Art encouraged him to make copies of pieces in their collection and testing them. This has developed his personal understandings that jewelry artifact crystallizes “human drama” and this knowledge base has empowered my trajectory into playing with jewelry history and applying a contemporary relevance to it.*

Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Brooch, Post War High Society, circa. 1950, 2010, silver, enamel, glass, electroplate, 1 3/16 x 2 61/64 x 2 61/64 inches (30 x 75 x 75 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines.

Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Brooch, Post War High Society, circa 1950, 2010, silver, enamel, glass, powder coat, 1 7/32 x 3 5/8 x 3 5/8 inches (31 x 92 x 92 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines.

In Living Treasure and Fabulous Follies, Baines assembles a fictitious jewelry narrative, captivating not only in the creativity and craftsmanship evident in the works, but also in the artist’s fascination with the enigma of jewelry as material evidence of authentic history.

The exhibition features 76 works organized into three narrative arcs – Armbandits, Collecting, and The Official History of the Compact Disc – each presenting jewelry as material evidence. The jewelry, however, should be viewed with caution – the artist’s linear “histories” are rife with myth, riddle, puzzle and possible subversions of their origin.

Baines’ jewelry references the design vocabulary of historic European metalworking techniques in a completely distinct aesthetic. By using ancient techniques in playful new ways, Baines challenges the mythology present in contemporary culture.

Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Brooch, Compact Disc, circa 2000, 2010, silver, glass, powder coat, electroplate, compact disc, 1 3/8 x 3 5/32 x 3 5/32 inches (35 x 80 x 80 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines.

Living Treasure and Fabulous Follies is often challenging and confusing to the uninformed. These finely crafted jewels from the exhibition are posed as mysteries that lead to questions of authenticity and sabotage and this may innocently be due to ‘Chinese whispers’ or fallacious examples of how design influences design and the misunderstanding that happens along the way.  Other examples of the bogus are when fakers and copiers do not have access to an accurate primary reference to follow. Consequently, they draw on their own varying imagination, which is a poor substitute, and we find inaccuracy ensues.

In chasing “the fantasy of artefact” Robert Baines asks fundamental questions about building fictitious jewelry and this exhibition of conspiracy will captivate everyone interested not only in creativity and craftsmanship but also in the artist’s intrigue with the enigma of jewelry as evidence of authentic history.

One of the most prominent contemporary goldsmiths in the world, Baines is the recipient of numerous international awards, including the Bayerischer State Prize (2005) and Friedrich Becker Prize (2008) in Germany; and the Cicely and Colin Rigg Craft Award (1997), the richest craft prize in Australia. He holds a Ph.D. from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he is a professor of gold and silversmithing. In 2010, he was designated a Living Treasure: Master of Australian Craft. Baines’s astonishingly detailed 

Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Brooch, Giraffe, Flemish, circa 1620, 2010, silver, 13/64 x 1 3/16 x 1 3/16 inches (5 x 30 x 30 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines.

metalwork, which reflects his studies in archaeometallurgy, embodies ancient techniques such as linear wirework and granulation but with the scale, grandeur, and irony of current practice. His jewelry is contained in countless international museum collections, including: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Powerhouse Museum, Sidney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Germany; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; and Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; among others.

Left: Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Ornament Parthian, circa 3rd century, 2009, silver-gilt, 1 31/32 x 3 47/64 x 3 47/64 inches (50 x 95 x 95 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines. Middle: Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Etruscan Disc, Greek, circa 5th century B.C., 2008, 25/32 x 2 ¾ x 2 ¾ inches (20 x 70 x 70 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines. Right: Robert Baines, Australian (Melbourne, Australia, 1949 - ), Brooch, Meaner Than Yellow, 2008, silver, powder coat, electroplate, paint, 2 61/64 x 4 23/32 x 4 23/32 inches (75 x 120 x 120 millimeters). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Robert Baines.

* Ref. Robert Baines interviewed by Bonnie Levine for Art jewelry Forum on 21/04/2016

Exhibition Run:

July 20, 2018 – October 7, 2018

Arkansas Arts Center

9th & Commerce / MacArthur Park
72203-2137 -  Little Rock 
UNITED STATES

info@arkansasartscenter.org

About the Contributing Writer

Ilaria Ruggiero is a cultural manager and curator working in the field of contemporary art. She is the founder of Adornment - Curating Contemporary Art Jewelry, a curatorial integrated project dedicated to contemporary art jewelry. It aims to develop the knowledge and consciousness of contemporary jewelry as artistic discipline and as ground search for technique, aesthetics, and philosophy.

www.adornment-jewelry.com