JEWELLERY EXHIBITION & PERFORMANCE
➜ Opening: Friday, 6 May, 18:00 @ Goethe Pavilion, Calea Dorobanți 32.
One hundred years after his birth, what can be said about the iconic artist Joseph Beuys when everything has been said and shown? How could he be talked about again, how could he be brought into a new key of interpretation without repeating what has already been exhibited?
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- I Like America and America Likes Me _Joseph Beuys
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- artist Joseph Beuys
These are just some of the questions I asked myself when I received the invitation from the Goethe-Institut to curate a jewelry exhibition that would be oriented towards Beuys. One thing was quickly clear from the beginning: Beuys was not interested in jewelry, not even in jewelry as an art form. He did not wear jewelry and did not create objects to adorn the human body.
Although his work contains many prefabricated objects, one could say that jewelry would be obvious, but it is nowhere to be found. Talking about Joseph Beuys through jewelry has challenged us. Finding the right balance of the meaning and spirit of Joseph Beuys in relation to jewelry was not easy. An awe-inspiring exhibition in honour of Beuys, but with a theme that the figure does not play on at all: Jewelry.
I realised that I had initially only perceived Beuys through the well-known performance I Like America and America Likes Me, known as well as “Coyote”, a conceptual performance which took place in 1974, in New York . As jewelry is considered to be jewelry only when it is related to the human body, the need to showcase a performace became obvious. Consequently, the dancer Vava Stefănescu was invited to take part in the project, therefore I knew that there will certainly be a lot of movement and that the main element of the exhibition should be a video.
Pandant Melanie Isverding
We chose the five jewelry artists to be as diverse as possible. What unites them is that they speak about trauma, germination, art, solidarity and continuity. The two German artists, Melanie Isverding and Gisbert Stach, both work in the conceptual field of jewelry. However, they work in different styles. Melanie Isverding is more tactile in technique and material. Each of her pieces involves a lengthy process of making. From her I chose three amulet necklaces, carefully woven and in minimalist, perfect frames. From Gisbert Stach, I chose perhaps the most conceptual piece of all: a jewelry video performance that speaks of erosion and destruction.
Video Gisbet Stach _ dancer Vava Stefanescu
The three Romanian jewelry artists are Ana Barbu, Cleopatra Cosulet and Teodor Siminic. Ana Barbu is probably the closest from them all to the Beuyan “spirit”. She herself collects objects from various places and assembles them into jewelry. In the case of the jewels in the video, they were collected from the plant kingdom. A root pendant and a necklace made of dried branches worn at the base of her neck.
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- jewelry Ana Barbu – dancer Vava Ștefănescu
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- jewelry Ana Barbu – dancer Vava Ștefănescu
Cleopatra Coșuleț lends us the first pieces from her collection “Incipit”, which speaks to us about beginnings and endings, about cycles as something natural and necessary. Her jewelry is organic, round like pitch-black eggs, tempting us to touch them delicately and protect them.
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- jewelry Cleopatra Coșuleț- dancer Vava Stefănescu
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- dancer Vava Stefănescu
Teodor Siminic gives us “ZMEI”, dragon brooches. Like alchemical totems, with the golden apple in the middle, they can be worn on the chest or the back, as the figure in the video chose.
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- jewelry Teodor Siminic – dancer Vava Stefănescu
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- jewelry Teodor Siminic – dancer Vava Stefănescu
Vava Stefănescu becomes this universal body that, like Beuys, chooses its objects and resonates with each one. She loves them, repels them, protects them, plays with them, wears them like symbolic jewels in an unregulated dance born of experience and instinct. Radu Savin, who devises the images, cuts the sequences and selects the sound, has the task of making jewelry and Joseph Beuys flow together in this central piece of the exhibition.
Beuys said: “Every man is an artist.”
I believe that he gave us the greatest gift with this sentence. Every time I read it, something is added to my freedom.
Dan Pierșinaru, curator.
jewelry Melanie Isverding – dancer Vava Stefanescu
➜ Opening: Friday, 6 May, 18:00 @ Goethe Pavilion, Calea Dorobanți 32.
The exhibition runs from 6th to 28th May 2022 in the Goethe Pavillion and is complemented by two contemporary jewelry workshops with the artists Melanie Isverding & Gisbert Stach. The workshop In the Force Field of the Seeker by Gisbert Stach will take place between 05 – 07.05.2022, while Material Narratives by Melanie Isverding between 19 – 21.05.2022.
For applying to the workshops, please send a personal presentation and portfolio by 01.05.2022 to: hello@dautor.ro
➜ VIDEO credits:
Art direction: Dan Pierșinaru
Dance & Choreography: Vava Ștefănescu
Film and editing: Radu Savin
Costumes: Marius Mușat
➜ Contemporary Dance Performance during the exhibition program: Maria-Luiza Dimulescu, Mariana Gavriciuc, Filip Stoica, Răzvan Rotaru
Project coordinator: Oana Lapadatu
Project assistant: Lisann Mai
Organizers: Goethe-Institut, AUTOR Contemporay Jewelry Platform
➜ In collaboration with: The National Dance Center Bucharest, ART-UP – School of Contemporary Jewelry, Tint.10
Media Partner: TVR
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