Past Exhibition

Body Language: Contemporary Art Jewelry

November 30, 2012 – January 26, 2013

Craftforms 2012 will feature Body Language: Contemporary Art Jewelry The 18th International Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Craft. November 30, 2012 – January 26, 2013. Body Language: Contemporary Art Jewelry will explore the various ways that jewelry modifies and supplements the body to address a range of concerns, from the personal to the political. Curated by Suzanne Ramljak, Editor of Metalsmith magazine will run in conjunction with Craft Forms and be displayed in the Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery. Guest Curator: Suzanne Ramljak Curator’s Statement: Jewelry can perform a number of functions, from signaling status to commemorating loss to expressing individual taste. Regardless of personal value or social import, jewelry always relates to the human body, which is its actual or implied site of operation. Indeed, jewelry and the human form are engaged in an intricate dialogue, mutually defining and interpreting each other for the social stage. While all jewelry is intended for our bodies, it can also be created about and of the body. The exhibition, “Body Language: Contemporary Art Jewelry,” explores the intimate link between object and wearer, and the ways that jewelry modifies and speaks of the body as subject, site, and matter. Among the works on view are pieces depicting anatomical parts; jewelry dealing with physiological processes and interior structures; full figures and silhouettes; and works made from bodily substances like hair or bone. The selected works by twenty-seven contemporary jewelry artists in “Body Language” reveal the potent and telling interplay between the human physique and the objects we choose to attach to ourselves. Through such physical involvement, these jewelers provide insights into the human condition and the eloquence of our corporeal selves.