AUTOR ✒ Athens Jewelry Week ②⓪①⑨

AJW is a festival. An emerging context where artists and audiences from the contemporary jewelry field can meet, exchange ideas, network and develop future collaborations. The works exhibited during AJW are not only art pieces that express states of being, provoke discussions and comment on current sociological structures and tendencies, but are also a means to an end. The founders of AJW are the anticlastics duo Erato Kouloubi and Niki Stylianou, both artists and organizers of AJW.

We arrived on the second day of the festival and went straight to Popeye Loves Olive Gallery owned by Erato Kouloubi. There we saw Hanna Hedman’s “Murmurings” exhibition. She presented a selection of works, evoked by the dark tales and mysteries of the distant past, integrating history and imagination. In an enticing vision of a parallel fantasy world, Hanna creates mystical wearable objects. Her intricate, elaborate and extremely time-consuming technique is in constant dialogue with the masterful craftsmanship of bygone times. The exhibition was accompanied by a live street concert. The music, amazing jewelry collection and the people made the perfect mix for a great start at AJW for us.

The same night, we continued our journey through contemporary jewelry exhibitions at Booze Cooperativa. Three rooms with three different stories and artists. In the first room were exposed the pieces of jewelry of six Hungarian contemporary jewelry designers, H6 group. You can also find two of the artists of the H6 group in AUTOR Magazine no. 6: Anna Borcsok and Zsofia Neuzer with astounding features about beauty. They will also have in September in Budapest a festival dedicated to contemporary jewelry, so keep an eye on them;  Control/ Ctrl+S is the name of their event.

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Another room hosted the exhibition by Tricyclo collective: Ismini Pachi, Sari Saritasara (Sra Mas) and TNT. Tricyclo group was formed under the umbrella of sharing common thoughts about contemporary jewelry transposing them in their works. We found them crazy and amazing, very interactive with a touch of steampunk moods. Between those two rooms was the exhibition of Ikaros Moushouttas “Hesperides”. We were fascinated by the jewelry made from citrus fruit and how they become phosphorescent in the light.

We continue the walk through the universe of jewelry going a lot from place to place and Saturday we dedicated most of the day to Benaki Museum, visiting the main AJW exbitibion, exchanging ideas, making photos and having long talks between us because we had to award a talented artist for AUTOR Award @ AJW 2019.

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It was hard to choose a winner, but after debates, we chose Lucie Houdkova to be the winner of AUTOR Award. We really enjoyed the selection of artists, but Lucie’s jewelry collection “Deep” was stood out as sparkle, joyful, sensitive and playful. Characteristics that make us fall in love with her work. Lucie also received two other awards: the AJW 2019 Award and she was the Visitors Choice Award.

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Sunday, before the awards ceremony, we wanted to see the UTOPIA exhibition by three dear friends and usuals at AUTOR Fair, the jewelry artists Gili Doliner, Tami Eshed & Daniella Saraya. They had a very poetic, soft and warm exhibition. The jewelry and space made a perfect connection. The artists started to make a new collection of jewelry taking the inspiration from the poem Utopia by by Wislawa Szymborska.

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Another exhibition that we loved and stuck to our minds days after we saw it was Interior – Exterior by Jorge Manilla & Agustina Ros. It took place in a bookstore a little bit hidden, but full of dreamy feelings.

“Is this the end? Or just a new start ?” –  HEART FAILURE exhibition at BOO! bar, proposed by ALLIAGES and curated by Juan Riusech presented more than 50 artists and their pieces of jewelry about the heart. It was a blast for the eye to see all those beautiful jewelry exposed in such a great way and space. The Exhibitions at T.A.F. (The Art Foundation), at Institut Français d’Athènes and The ABC group exhibition, created magic in our lives in those days. We left each of those exhibitions wandering, being more curious and hungry about more and more contemporary jewelry.

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We visited also our friends from Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum to see jewelry schools from all over the world showing their student work. We were happy to see again Assamblage School of Contemporary Jewelry from Romania with their “menu of jewelry” – #RemainsoftheFeast. After we saw the beautiful works of students, we made a short tour in the other rooms of the museum to find out more about the history of jewelry because it is the perfect place to find the roots of this art.

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After five days in Athens we felt the small world of contemporary jewlery is more rich by all this emotion created in a beautiful May in 2019, by some very passionate people who are in love with contemporary jewelry. As organizers of AUTOR fair, we easily understand that it is not at all simple to build an event, but we love sharing this passion and enthusiasm with all the artists and aficionados of contemporary jewelry in the world.

Contemporary jewelery.
Extension of personality.