Curator
Unlike in previous years, in which museum curators, art historians and goldsmiths acted as curators, the collector Dr. Karl Bollmann, who has been passionately dedicated to the subject for over 30 years, was asked to make the selection for 2012.
He says the following about the selection of 65 exhibitors from the almost 700 applications from 35 countries:
“Every single entrant has brought the essence of jewellery to life in their own way. Each and every one of them had created a cause that they were convinced had to be made visible and brought to life for others”.
Winners of the Herbert-Hofmann-Prize 2012
Alexander Blank, Germany
Memento juniori!, Remember your youth! Alexander Blank does not formulate this title of his jewellery nostalgically, but rather he butchers the comic heroes of his childhood, so to speak, and reduces them to their bones. But despite their skeletal nature, they are still recognisable: the coyote, the duck, the rabbit, the cat. The creative process leads the artist to an unexpected organic abstraction, which is intensified by the ghostly white. It is a convincing incorporation of the comic culture of our day into contemporary jewellery art. The icon of yesteryear becomes a humorous talisman of the present.
Despo Sophocleous, Canada
The jewellery by Despo Sophocleous looks like a photographic image of a moment in which a structure is about to collapse. The moment of instability is not presented in a threatening way, but in the form of an equilibristic feat. Using simple white wooden plates, the artist creates a playful, very poetic composition in which the individual elements are movable, making it a sensual and acoustic experience to wear.
Tore Svensson, Sweden
This jewellery takes up a classic form of sentimental jewellery in terms of motif and function. It is reminiscent of the portrait medallions and amulets of days gone by. Tore Svensson deliberately takes the jewellery to the interface of the private and public spheres, presenting it unprotected by a lid of images that are usually kept secret. His etched portraits on black steel show and hide themselves through subtle optical effects. The coming and disappearance of memory is captured here for a brief moment with astonishing technical precision.
Winner of the Bavarian State Prize 2012
Liv Blåvarp, Norway
The jewellery designer Liv Blåvarp is one of Norway’s most respected craftswomen. For decades, wood has been the typical material for her jewellery, which she sometimes designs coloured or accentuates with details. The expressive, sometimes moving forms are usually structured by many individual parts arranged in rows; they appear soft, flowing, slightly mobile and take away the solidity of wood as a material. Her work is unmistakably unique.
