By cloelea, Sep 28 2017
Medusa, Ailleurs, Au fil de l’Autre, Traces, Emotional Nudity, Sous Influence, Rêver un Rêve Impossible, Le Flou, le Faux, le Double – Trouble dans l’Ornement, Deep Love, Enveloppe, Paris est un Prétexte… So many enticing titles for an autumn in Paris!
A major international jewellery event is taking place this autumn in Paris: Parcours Bijoux 2017, with more than 50 projects presented: including many exhibitions around the city of Paris from September to December 2017, but also conferences and performances.
The centre piece of this event is the temporary jewellery exhibition at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, entitled: MEDUSA, Bijoux et tabous (19th May-5th November 2017; http://www.mam.paris.fr/fr/expositions/exposition-medusa-0).
“The exhibition Medusa, Jewellery and Taboos takes an unprecedented contemporary perspective on jewellery, unveiling a number of taboos. Just like the face of Medusa in Greek mythology, a piece of jewellery attracts and troubles the person who designs it, looks at it or wears it. Jewellery has an ambiguous status, mid-way between fashion and sculpture, and is rarely considered to be a work of art. Indeed, it is often perceived as too close to the body, too feminine, precious, ornamental or primitive. But it is thanks to avant-garde artists and contemporary designers that it has been reinvented, transformed and detached from its own traditions. The exhibition brings together over 400 pieces of jewellery created by artists, avant-garde jewellery makers and designers, contemporary jewellery makers and also high end jewellers, as well as anonymous, more ancient or non-Western pieces. These pieces, well-known, little-known, unique, familiar, handmade, mass-produced, or computer made, mix some refined, hand-wrought, amateur and even futuristic aesthetics which are rarely associated together” (https://parcoursbijoux.com/lieux/medusa-bijoux-et-tabous-2/).
Contemporary jewellery is little known in France, in particular compared to other countries in the world (and in particular in Europe), where there is a better understanding of this kind of jewellery which is more related to art than to high-end jewellery with its diamonds or to standard traditional jewellery you can buy in any jewellery shop. That is why this exhibition and all the events around it are such an important step for jewellery artists as well as for the public, and that’s also why I am so frilled to be going to Paris in a month’s time to see this exhibition just before it finishes (on the 1st of November)!
I also want to mention four of the other smaller jewellery exhibitions taking place at the same time because they seem quite enticing. There are many more which I am sure are well worth a visit!
Ailleurs features five foreign artists from various backgrounds which have set down roots in France. Their work explore the themes of migration, identity, distances, borders and the search for a self “elsewhere”.
Au fil de l’Autre presents jewellery created from what has emerged between three women who have forged a relationship during a year of conversations on literature and feminine creation where they shared and talked about themes like: love, sexuality, motherhood, expressing womanhood…
Traces is exhibition by two artists “on memories and their physical and emotional impact… Tangible signs on our surface and invisible marks buried deep within us are traces of things that have happened to us, and our experiences with people”.
Emotional Nudity combines two artists’ sensibilities and questionings about “the way we reveal ourselves through our jewellery”. They created a series of sculptural shells “to invite the public to come closer and discover deeper emotional meanings and fragility”.
All the information about these exhibitions can be found here: https://parcoursbijoux.com
Cloelea Jewellery 