The Florentine week dedicated to the fascinating microcosm of contemporary jewellery will be held in spring, from 28th April to 2nd May, and will be distinguished this year by the rich calendar of events scheduled, among exhibitions, conferences, workshops and live demonstrations, disseminated in different locations in the city center and the Oltrarno, including institutional spaces and galleries.
Heart of Florentine craftsmanship, the Oltrarno is in fact the home of Le Arti Orafe, the prestigious jewellery academy founded in 1985 by Giò Carbone, author of this exceptional event, the first in Italy since 2015.
The project was created in 2005 in a quite different format, known as “PREZIOSA”, a biennial exhibition that over time has given visibility to the most important protagonists of contemporary jewellery, from the “fathers” of the 70s of the last century, up to our days, and therefore offering the public different interpretative keys to understand the new instances of this specific growing sector.
This year, the curatorship of the entire event is entrusted to the duo Giò Carbone and Alice Rendon, who together have built a complex program dedicated to telling jewellery in its various forms and applications, contemplating artistic research, craftsmanship, new technologies, and sustainability.
Exhibitions
The epicenter of the event will be the main exhibition, PREZIOSA, hosted in the evocative setting of the Galleria delle Carrozze of Palazzo Medici Riccardi.
The nine invited artists are all established and award-winning personalities of the international art scene: Lauren Kalman, Anya Kivarkis, Rein Vollenga, Sam Tho Duong, Jayne Wallace, Kazumi Nagano, Conversation Piece (Beatrice Brovia & Nicolas Cheng), Ana Rajcevic and Barbara Paganin.
One of the main objectives of FJW2022 is to understand, through the work of these authors, how the horizons of contemporary jewellery are redefining, a field that is now facing the progressive disintegration of obsolete categorizations, opening up to the fusion of expressive languages and the intersection of artistic practices.
In the exhibition not only jewels, but also wearable sculptures, able to deeply transform their wearer, advancing a concept of “decoration” that comes to redesign the bodies, hybrid and contaminated, reshaping both outward appearance and identity.
Another key theme is the dematerialization of the object in the digital age, based on the image culture and conveyed by new technologies, also capable, on the other hand, of offering new possibilities of connection, with the creation of multimedia jewels.
A current issue that concerns the contemporary production of ornaments is the practice of upcycling, or creative recycling, which gives new prestige to leftover materials whose destination is renewed and whose preciousness is the result of the craftsman’s skill.
Technical and intellectual wisdom is reflected not only in the work of the goldsmiths and designers represented in the main exhibition, but also more generally connects the various projects presented during the event.
Near Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in the halls of Palazzo del Pegaso, a huge selection of the largest private collection of contemporary jewellery existing, belonging to the Austrian couple Karl and Heidi Bollmann, will be exhibited. For the occasion, they will provide several pieces made by some of the major protagonists of the “New Jewelry”: Manfred Bischoff, Peter Chang, Yasuki Hiramatsu, Fritz Maierhofer, Bruno Martinazzi, Francesco Pavan, Ruudt Peters, Gerd Rothmann, Peter Skubic.
In the last room of Palazzo del Pegaso, the guest of excellence of FJW 2022, namely the extraordinary headpiece by the master Giovanni Corvaja, woven in the noblest metal and part of the prestigious series of the Golden Fleece.
The exhibition PREZIOSA YOUNG, hosted in the very elegant Galleria del Palazzo Coveri on Lungarno Guicciardini, will feature the five winners of the tenth edition of this competition, imagined by LAO with the aim of promoting new talents in jewellery research.
The PREZIOSA MAKERS section, set up from 28th April to 1st May in the former Stables of Palazzo Corsini al Prato and organized in collaboration with ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO, will offer for the first time a space for sale to designers and goldsmiths who apply within the deadline, submitting jewels that must stand out for innovation and originality.
5-STAR JEWELLERY TOUR. Eight of the most prestigious 5-star hotels in Florence will host pieces by some of the artists featured in the main exhibitions of the event, namely PREZIOSA, PREZIOSA YOUNG, Collezione Bollmann: Dimora Palanca, Lungarno, Regency, Savoy, The Place, The Westin Excelsior, Villa Cora, Ville sull’Arno
Fratelli Piccini boutique. Themed showcases with the presentation of the “BLOOM” collection, dedicated to rebirth.
Open visits to the Boutique and the laboratory.
Reservations on 055 294768.
On the 29th at 5.00 pm, meeting with the creative director Elisa Tozzi Piccini, who will show guests some jewels of particular artistic and artisan interest, in addition to the Bloom collection.A toast will follow to celebrate this meeting opportunity.
Unusual Artisanal Florence
The excellences are: Dini Caffè srl (Artisan coffee roasting), Moleria Locchi srl (glass and crystal craftmanship), Julia Markert (frames-gilding-restoring antique Italian frame collection), Pestelli Creazioni (goldsmith), Le pietre nell’Arte di Scalpelli Renzo e C. snc (semiprecious stones manufacture), Penko Bottega Orafa (goldsmith), Hotel Medici.
Lectures
On the central days of the event, 30th April and 1st May, inside the Foresteria Valdese di Firenze in Via dei Serragli 49, there will be a series of speeches given by experts in jewellery, design and visual arts, namely Roberta Bernabei, Maria Laura La Mantia, Paola Stroppiana, Federica Fontana, Carla Riccoboni, Barbara Schmidt, Nantia Koulidou, and by some of the invited artists: Conversation Piece, Lauren Kalman, Ana Rajcevic, Anya Kivarkis, and Jayne Wallace.
This cycle of conferences will be an opportunity to deepen the themes examined and to describe some of the projects exhibited, as well as offering a wide audience the opportunity to approach and learn about a complex reality in expansion.
BOOK THE LECTURES HERE
Find out more about FJW2022 on www.preziosa.org.
DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM IN PDF
