Munich - Day 5

Hi again,

Thursday March 8th

This morning AJF presented a panel discussion called The Responsibility of the Collector at the Galerie Handwerk, which is the gallery for the Bavarian Craft Council. The panelists we Catherine Rose (art collector from Dallas), Jeroen Redel (landscape designer and philosopher from Amsterdam), Stephanie Schuitemaker (young Dutch fashionista) and yours truly- all art jewelry collectors with Toni Greenbaum as moderator. It was a really good discussion since we all had something strong and thoughtful to say about what we were doing. We each talked a little about specific pieces we liked and why, then showed how we stored our collections and then how we kept track of them. Then Toni asked some good questions about the different aspects of wearing jewelry and a good discussion followed. I had to defend why I don’t wear jewelry but moving right along I changed the subject to the library that goes along with the collection and how important books and knowledge are to collecting…etc We got good feedback.

Next door to the panel discussion is the actual gallery where there was a show of the work of Francesco Pavan- Italian and Tore Svensson- Swedish. The next 3 are by Francesco and the silhouettes are by Tore.

Then we grabbed our van and visited the space that Ellen Reiben from WDC put together with Bettina Dittlmann, Michael Jank, and Carolanne Patterson. The most amazing thing we saw there was Bettina pulling metal fiber fillings off a magnet, which formed the basis of a necklace and throwing them on the floor and then taking the magnet and dragging it back over the fillings so it could pick them back up again. The result was a pendant (sorry it is so hard to see in the image) with metal filings spiked out all over it. These pieces were done in memory of her parents who both died recently. She started the series with a magnet she got from her father’s workshop and for her the following series is a  memorial - dust to dust and ashes to ashes. Some of the filings are from a factory that makes bells for religious purposes so that becomes another overtone.

  

Also at the same location these found paintings with brooches by Carolanne Patterson I thought were very charming.

Carolanne also did this wild wall hanging with old pieces of lace that she dyed and stitched together with a woman in Afghanistan. 

 

Then on to Galerie Bíro, which owned by an over the top Hungarian. When she sees me she says - with a strong accent. Susan Susan Susan… with big hugs and kisses and lots of drama.. yikes. I expect this from her now but it still is …. well I don’t know how to react. Anyway she was very high on the artist she was showing named Gabi Dziuba who was not an interesting jeweler in my eyes but evidently had a very interesting younger life with many famous German Artists so that qualified her for the Royal treatment.

 

These earrings by Gabi were the only slightly interesting thing she did … but would you know that she took the H and the O from the title of the Rocky Horror Show if you were wearing them and didn’t see a sign right next to them.. I bet you didn’t even make that connection just by looking… anyway maybe it is all in the fact of know that is where they came from even if no one else knows.

  

On to Ellen Maurer-Ziloli who is one of the best jewelry dealers world wide- for me anyway. She has interesting shows but mostly she has older work by older more established artists. The 3 pendants are by Otto Kunzli and are necklace of an gold decorative architectural fragment on a wire. He is a ‘why not’ kind of guy at this phase of his career.

 

Here is Ellen herself holding up an Eve Eisler brooch and wearing a Bruno Martinazzi bracelet and a Robert Smit necklace- the thing that looks like a painting.

  

She was also showing this Robert Smit painted brooch and this delicate gold brooch by Manfred Bischoff.

  

This stone was beautifully carved and if you look closely you can see that there is a brooch cradled in it that pops out. It is by a Japanese artist whose name escaped me. The necklace of ring variations is by Therese Hilbert who had a show with Ellen consisting of pieces related to volcanoes but I thought this necklace was the most clever. You can wear it in any of the 3 ways.

 

Time for lunch. You can see Margherita, Antonella Villanova’s assistant and Catherine Rose in the photo. Antonella brought jewelry for us to look at during lunch so even here we are still looking.

After lunch we stopped at a group showing called “In Touch” with a number of younger artists I know including this one doing these funny brooches. Her name is Lore Langendries. I have one piece of hers already and could consider one of these. They are fur.

  

Then we stopped at Micheko gallery to look again at Mariko Kusumoto. I tried to get some better photos but the lights just give everything that sick yellow tone.

  

Around the corner is this artist- Jasmin Matzakow, who is using nettles from the Academy garden to make these necklaces. She had a lovely explanation about how this material is free and it is something that people thousands of years ago could have used and how getting rid of the nettles from the garden is a good thing to do etc…but she made it sound so poetic. Anyway I quite liked them too. They smelled like grasses.

    

Then we moved on the Institute Francais Munich where these 2 talented young ones showed up. The copper necklace is by Li Liang and the feathered brooches are by Marion Delarue.

  

Then for our last stop we went to a place very near the hotel called the Kunstpavillion. There were several artists there I knew and that were doing interesting work.

    

Eun Mi Chun                                       Nadja Solovie

   

Carin Shoshtary                                   Attai Chen

Dinner - chicken- was the big gathering back out at the Messe where the Schmuck show was but I neglected to take any photos. It was a scene but it allowed me time to spend talking with Jorunn Veitberg- a Norwegian writer and curator living in Copenhagen and Catherine Rose and her friend Karen Pollock- (who have been friends since they were kids) for a while which was lovely. But of course there were tons of others who wanted to talk too so it was an intense social moment. The table next to ours was filled with a bunch of old Dutch and Italian jewelry who were all drinking and having a riot. Very funny. Lousie Smit kept stumbling out of the bench on her side of the table to take pictures and everyone had to cheer in the photo. What a scene.

Anyway back at the hotel I just fell into bed and slept immediately.

Hugs,

Susan