Planet Glitter: A Review of "Jewels!"

Jewelry That Makes You Think.

EXHIBITION REVIEW

PLANET GLITTER

A Review of Jewels!

by Saskia Kolff

Room after room in the exhibition Jewels! The Glitter of the Russian Court shines with gold and sparkles with diamonds. For the show, hundreds of jewels and decorative objects, spanning more than two centuries, traveled from St. Petersburg to Amsterdam, all of them produced by the best Russian and international jewelers for the tsars and their entourages. There is craftsmanship to admire, timeless beauty, and more such blah, blah, blah. The fact remains that, as a 21st-century jewelry lover, I don’t find it that easy to connect with the pieces of the super rich. The Hermitage Amsterdam tried some different approaches to address that issue.

Image caption: Pipe in a case, Western Europe, 19th century, coral, gold, paste gems, 80 mm long, collection Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg, photo courtesy of Hermitage Amsterdam

FEATURED AJF LIBRARY CONTENT

The Nuda Vita initiative, curated by Ilaria Ruggiero, explores the value and the role of the public, collective, and political body, starting from the expression Nuda Vita, coined by Benjamin and then developed by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, interpreted here as an impossible condition, unspeakable concept, and artistic action. Nudity does not happen as a physical condition, but as a symbolic event of resistance and sensitization.

Includes work by Vivien Bedwell, Daria Borovkova, Corrina Goutos, Satomi Kawai, Anna Lewis, Nina Lima, Daniel Ramos Obregón, Daniella Saraya, Hansel Tai, Martina Turini, Tanel Veenre, Maria Ignacia Walker, and Snem Yildirim. With an iconic concept as their starting point, relating to their own cultures of origin, and linked to a form of oppression of collective and individual freedom, they developed a body of work inspired by the chosen theme.

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