Amulets are extraordinary pieces of jewellery. This is because they are said to have a magical effect. Whether on the chest or in the pocket: amulets are always worn close to the body, and their shapes and the materials they are made of are highly symbolic. Many amulets serve as lucky charms or talismans, and some bear witness to the closeness of a loved one. Two different amulets are at the center of the “2A” exhibition: one designed by Maja Stojkovska and one by FLATZ.

Few people know that FLATZ, born in 1952 in Dornbirn/Austria, who achieved international fame primarily as an action and installation artist, began his artistic career as a gold and silversmith around 1970. In the decades that followed, he continued to design pieces of jewellery, primarily rings, but also brooches, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. In many of these works, the central theme can be recognized on a small scale, which FLATZ has also implemented in other, more expansive media in various creative phases: the vulnerability and finiteness of human existence. The round amulet on display in the exhibition shows an organoid body framed by golden lightning bolts on a lapis lazuli base, in which the ashes of his father, who died in 2022, are enclosed.

Traditionally, amulets are supposed to protect against hardship and danger. Many of our challenges today, says Maja Stojkovska, born in 1990 in Skopje, North Macedonia, are not caused by a lack of information, but by an excess of it: the flood of information in the digital age, the overstimulation caused by technological possibilities and the pressure to find one’s way through it all. With this in mind, Stojkovska uses discarded electronic parts for her jewellery. These are fully functional, unused elements – by-products of an overproducing consumer society. The materials, which were actually developed for connectivity and speed, are reconfigured through a time-consuming process of weaving and knotting. Accordingly, the electronic components take on a multi-layered significance. The WLAN antennas in her amulet send and receive invisible signals, and the digital Bluetooth symbol becomes a protective symbol.