Catalogue available from
exhibition venues
Includes essays and full artist statements,
b/w and colour plates
The Jewellery Out of Context (JOC) idea is born
from the desire to communicate the unique issues related to jewellery
and adornment, in formats with and different from itself, in order to
reveal and unravel the many facets related to the formation and
organisation of the jewellery discourse. This exhibition aims to
provoke the jewellery community by deconstructing and reassembling its
most elementary principle-'made to wear'. JOC is put together as a
playful token for its own centralised existence: jewellery' has a good
look to itself or jewellery 'dresses up' for its own party, where
artists look beyond, but not away from the phenomena of object
ornamentation and its psychology.
'JOC (Jewellery Out of Context)' is a renewed
version of the exhibition presented at the Sydney 2006 Jewellers' and
Metalsmiths' Group of Australia (JMGA) conference.
The 24 works created by 28 New Zealand artists
(all are immigrants, emigrants, migrants, or natives to New Zealand)
has explored the relationships and transformations of jewellery in its
wider content and context in a variety of media, including photography,
sculpture-, fibre- , taxidermies- and video art.
This exhibition has no strict format, other then
to celebrate jewellery and its related world. 'What is precious and
what is non-precious seen through the eyes of artists will transform
relationships and positions of normality. It is made special by
the reflection of who we are and what we like to be'.
Combining the 'art' and 'design' practices with
its craft linkage, presented with and by each other, with no particular
hierarchical order, will open up debate about both practices and
provide opportunities for new ideas. The aim was to include and provide
possibilities and opportunities for experimentation and creative
partnership among the JOC artists.
The functionality of the object and its occupied
(small) space expand on the notion of psychology of proportion and onto
the psychology of the owner and the onlooker. Bringing-in big scale
workers (sculptors, mix media, textile, film artists and set designers
etc) inside the museum walls will further deconstruct the realm of
comfort.
Peter Deckers
Co-ordinator, co-curator
