from Vogue Italia, February 2014.
“Bettina Speckner uses the ferrotype technique to create old-fashioned brooches with black-and-white photographs that always seem to capture and enhance the soul of every single element. Precious stones and pearls are set almost as if by chance on some of the creations and are never decorative; they are tools that reinforce the expressiveness of the pieces. These are nostalgic jewels to be handled with care. Jewels of a beauty rooted in mystery, suspended in a vague dimension that brings together the past, present and future.
Daniel Spoerri is an artist that was born in Romania and grew up in Switzerland. He was a promising dancer in Bern in the 1950s. He was one of the original signers of the Nouveau Réalisme manifesto and is known for having founded Eat Art. In this show he uses silver and glass to realize large jewels that represent crustaceans and strange anthropomorphic beings (A series of his works called The Bistrot of Santa Marta is currently on show at the Fondazione Mudima in Milan through Feb. 9).
These are two artists with more than thirty years of difference in terms of their ages. He creates large, bizarre irreverent ornaments that are often industrially created or that involve third parties. She is a craftsperson that follows all stages of the manufacture of her enigmatic and never ostentatious jewels. They both love flea markets and share an almost “animist” love for objects and try to show the essence of those objects. The two artists come to different conclusions with their pieces but they both interpret the everyday and offer it back with that expressive power of the language of art.”
