Contemporary jewelry is a world as little known in our country as it is much celebrated and frequented abroad. It is a world that is found neither in traditional goldsmithing nor in the occasional practice of small wearable sculptures sometimes made by artists as miniaturizations of their works. From the former it welcomes the materials and working techniques while from the latter the freedom to experiment and assemble different elements.
It differs from these, however, in the great autonomy that marks each piece, in the desire to create artistic forms that find their full expression only when worn on the fingers of the hands, around the neck or pinned on a dress.
Contemporary jewelry is not a simple accessory but rather an original project, where form and content are once again inseparable, where craftsmanship and expertise meets the culture of innovation. It is a work of art in which the dramaturgy of primary energies emerges, in which it is shaped without making sculpture, in which it is possible to pour the happenings of the world or to achieve unified visions of nature. Those who create it are artists and designers, craftsmen and innovators, exponents no longer of a minor art but of the possibility of creating an autonomous language that amplifies that of the body's natural language.
For the second year in a row at the fascinating greenhouses of the Tenimenti D'Alessandro park (Manzano, Cortona) from August 23 to 28, the appointment promoted by the Antonella Villanova Gallery with this intriguing and little-known world of artist's jewelry is renewed. Also this year, The Bright House title of the exhibition, hosts the works of nine of the most important creators and international exponents of contemporary jewelry. It is an exhibition that succeeds in representing the complexity and variety of its expressions: from the fantastical figures of Manfred Bischoff, who unfortunately passed away recently, to the minimalism of Giampaolo Babetto, from the imaginative nature of Dutchman Ralph Bakker to the technological hieraticism of Helen Britton, from the animal softnesses of David Bielander to the oxidized solidities of Peter Bauhuis, from the free juxtapositions of Rike Bartels to the material concretions of Italians Lucia Massei and Marzia Rossi.