Breaking with convention
How do we define jewellery? What makes it jewellery? What does it mean to us? What is jewellery able and allowed to do? Seen against the backdrop of the increasing appreciation of jewellery as an autonomous artistic medium, a need for fundamentally rethinking antiquated notions of jewellery had been growing among jewellery-makers since the 1960s.
Traditionally, jewellery has tended to be defined primarily with reference to material and form. Categories such as beauty, status, value, perfection and durability seemed for a long time indissolubly linked with that classic idea of what jewellery is. It was not until jewellery came to be interwoven with fine art that the rigid conception was overcome to reveal new dimensions.
Today artistically ambitious goldsmiths are still subverting conventions and using jewellery as a medium for self-expression and as an alternative semantic vehicle. The focus is on the quality of artistic expression and the political, societal and socio-critical messages these works often convey, rather than the value of precious metals and gemstones.
