Also known as jewellery

Velvet da Vinci Gallery in San Francisco presents “also known as jewelry”, a project curated by Christian Alandete and Benjamin Lignel for la Garantie, association pour le bijou. The show, touring first to London and Rome, comes to San Francisco for its only US venue and features 17 French contemporary jewelers. This exhibition opens September 16, with an artists’ reception on Friday, September 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. A catalogue will be available for purchase.

Contemporary jewelry, in France and abroad, is undergoing a spectacular evolution: in recent years, it has both staked out new territories of experimentation and claimed a pivotal position between art, design and traditional craft. The title of this exhibition underlines the specificity of contemporary jewelry, and the ambiguity inherent to a craft-based, boundary-pushing practice: the work selected is therefore both alien to its tradition, and well versed in its history. The selection for this touring show focused on the work of 17 artists - French, or working in France - who together make a convincing case for the vitality of this rather under-exposed part of the European contemporary jewelry community.

This project is part of the ongoing program by the brand new association la Garantie, founded in 2007 in Paimpont (France) . The purpose of this new association is to promote jewelry outside its primary audience of makers, collectors, and gallery owners. We aim to increase its visibility and encourage confrontations with amateurs and specialists alike, through various approaches: historical conceptualization, the confrontation of current practices, and the promotion and critical analysis of contemporary trends. The diverse backgrounds of the association’s founding members - two makers, two PhDs, one curator - reflect our ambition to establish a self-sufficient cultural `task force´ able to collaborate with both institutional and private partners.

a project curated by christian alandete & benjamin lignel for la Garantie, association pour le bijou.