Lisbon 2024 June 27

Hi,

This won't be as exciting a posting as the last couple of days because the day started with 3 lectures which are hard to convey in a blog. In the evening we went to the opening of a show so there will be images eventually.

The lectures were by Cindi Strauss, Monica Gaspar and Vivi Touloumidi.

Cindi was first up with a talk about political American Jewelry based on the book we did together with Damian Skinner called In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture. She didn't really have a chance to finish the talk because of technical difficulties as they say. She was the trial run and a lot of things got worked out during the time she was supposed to be speaking. But she did get to say a few things first.

She was pointing out the early makers who made political statements like Fred Woell, Jim Cotter, and Don Tompkins. At the Don Tompkins image the computer she was using failed and a whole team of people had to try to figure out what to do. It started out great.

Then came Monica Gaspar who talked about the time of the dictatorship in Spain. Her grandparents had a gallery in Barcelona and they acted as a hub for other arts organizations. She showed jewelry from the time but I don't think Sala Gaspar showed it. They did have jazz and other events at the gallery though.

It was a personal account of the times and connected Monica to some amazing history.

The final speaker was Vivi Touloumidi who discussed the topic of her Phd thesis. It is about the development of the pins and badges that the Nazis designed to designate who was who. They used the triangle shape for many designations.

It was a hard talk to sit through given what it meant to the people who were designated by the Nazi's as Jews or homosexuals for example. It was the dark side of jewelry if you want to call badges jewelry.

After that we went downstairs for a talk by Marta Costa Reis about the show we have already seen.

Then we walked down the street to an old and slightly decrepit building where the show Jewelry and the Politics of Hope was installed. It was a large show which had to be set up at the last minute in this building. We are going to have a walk through tomorrow and I will give you a report about it then. But in the mean time here are a few photos.