Nicole Landaw Jewelry
www.nicolelandaw.com
AERIN CUFF, 18k gold
image and object copyright 2004
The Museum of Arts and Design presents LOOT 2011: MAD about Jewelry, sponsored by VandM.com. LOOT 2011 is its juried selling exhibition of contemporary studio art jewelry beginning October 11. Now, in its 11th edition, LOOT has earned the reputation of being the ultimate pop-up shop for this one-of-a-kind jewelry among artists and collectors alike, mostly because it affords the public the rare opportunity to acquire pieces directly from the artists. This year there will be an international array of 45 on hand, both emerging and acclaimed. Prices for their works range from $200 to $18,000, with $1000 the average. Proceeds benefit the Museum’s exhibition and education programs.
The four-day-long event kicks off on October 11, with an afternoon gala preview, packed with unique art jewelry events. Diane Venet, MAD’s guest curator of Picasso to Koons: The Artist as Jeweler will moderate a panel composed of featured exhibition artists Michele Oka Doner and Illya and Emilia Kabakov, along with Corice Arman, the widow of the French-born artist Arman. The group will discuss the unique appeal and challenges of making “wearable sculptures.” Later that afternoon, historian and curator Lois Sherr Dubin will lecture on the esteemed jewelry artist Barbara Natoli Witt, whose extraordinary creations have been collected by such legendary fashionistas as Diana Vreeland and Eleanor Lambert and a host of museums, including MAD. Gala attendees of the lecture will receive a complimentary copy of “Adornment,” Dubin’s lavish monograph on Witt’s rare art. Afterward, artists and MAD curators will be in attendance at the celebratory opening cocktail party.
As to the LOOT selling exhibition, design legend and LOOT Honorary Chair, Robert Lee Morris, will return with one-of-a-kind pieces, including prototypes from his early trendsetting collections. Other returnees include:
* Droog designer Iris Nieuwenburg, whose exquisite collage-like brooches, composed of vintage jewelry, old photos, doll house cutlery, and other miniatures, evoke the age of the rococo
* Native American designer Pat Pruitt, known for his aggressively industrial, stainless-steel bracelets, rings, and belt buckles
* Inventive metalsmith Anastasia Azure, acclaimed for her exquisite, dimensionally woven precious metal jewels adorned with pearls and gems
* Italian designer and sculptor Giorgio Vigna, whose elegant precious metal and Murano glass jewelry confounds traditional expectations of scale, weight, and form
* British artist Liz Hamman, who through techniques like origami transforms paper from books, maps, sheet music, and even board games, into artful jewelry
Among the artists making their LOOT debuts are:
* Renowned jeweler and gemologist Kara Ross, who has created one-of-a-kind wood bracelets as gifts for First Lady Michelle Obama to give to visiting dignitaries
* Japanese metalsmith Asagi Maeda, who creates miniature universes of city life in wearable forms, incorporating precious metals, enamel, quartz, and plastic
* Jamaican artist/poet Anna Ruth Henriques, whose captivating Goth forms in oxidized silver and 18K gold feature her signature hand-painted and -sculpted spider motif
* London-based Jacqueline Cullen, known for her sleek jewelry crafted out of Whitby jet
* Free-spirited metalsmith Andrea Williams, whose eco-conscious jewelry combines Maine beach stones with sterling silver and Venetian glass
* Boldly imaginative sculptor Elise Winters, who models jewelry out of polymer clay
* Four award-winning recent graduates from the studio jewelry program at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute
Michele Cohen, the Chair of LOOT, and two of her committee members, Bryna Pomp, a jewelry specialist, and Nancy Olnick, served as the jurors for this event, carefully selecting artists for their originality, range of materials, and expert craftsmanship. They would like give special thanks to their magnanimous fellow committee members, Barbara Tober and Ann Kaplan, and to LOOT 2011′s generous sponsors:
* Black Starr-Frost
* VandM.com
* Silver
* MS
MAD’S LONGSTANDING COMMITMENT TO CONTEMPORARY ART JEWELRY
MAD was the first American museum to possess a gallery dedicated to the display of both temporary jewelry exhibits and its own contemporary and modern jewelry collection, which it began assembling soon after its founding in 1956. The Museum’s curatorial commitment to studio art jewelry is part of its mission to explore and document the blur zone that defines so much of contemporary art, design, and craft.
