Classes

Instructor: Vivi Touloumidi

The workshop is tailored to the discipline of contemporary art jewelry and researches its creative methods. Together we will map diverse aspects of wearability and social coding of the body, as also investigate how concepts and cultural values materialize into jewelry formats. What role did metals play in maintaining these standards and how have artists worked against them or revalued their qualities? Furthermore, a series of illustrations will unveil how artists chose specific materials, either organic or industrial, to communicate their ideas and question hierarchies, but also reinvent traditional techniques in their making. Through short assignments and group discussions we will expand our skills in reading jewelry and understand how ideas manifest in form and matter. The aim of the workshop is to strengthen the bond between theory and practice, as also to support participants in identifying their position within the contemporary jewelry field.

 

Selected bibliography

• Oppi Untracht, “Jewelry Concepts and Technology”, London: Robert Hale Limited (1982).
• Liesbeth den Besten, “On Jewellery”, Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers (2011).
• W. Lindeman & FH Trier/ Idar-Oberstein, “Thinking Jewellery Schmuck Denken”,
  Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers (2011)
• Damian Skinner (ed.), “Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective”, New York: Lark (2013)

About Vivi Touloumidi

Vivi Touloumidi is an artist-researcher, writer and craftswoman. Her practice is rooted in artistic research at the intersections of cultural activism and craft disciplines. She investigates wearable and portable art as a medium of agency to carry sociopolitical messages, evoke discourse, and situate the body in the public realm. As a maker, she embraces a post-disciplinary approach that navigates fluidly between craft-led and theory-driven modes of thinking through the hands. By experimenting across materials and techniques she creates installations, adornments and sculptural works that explore the response-ability and social significance of body-related objects, as well as their performative potential in engaging with an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

On this trajectory, in 2022 she obtained a PhD in the Arts in collaboration with the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA) in Belgium. Her research was published in the artist book, “Pharmakos, adornment as a social tool” and was shown at a solo exhibition at M HKA museum INBOX space.  The doctoral project focused on how social oppression and conflict are materialised through the language of body adornments, drawing on both archival research and fieldwork. Through critical engagement with the poetics and semiotics of socio-political dissent, she created subversive statement pieces and installations that spoke of resilience, emancipation and self-determination.

Her research practice actively nurtures her evolving contributions to public discourse. She has been repeatedly an invited speaker on these topics at events, such as PARSE, the 4th Biennial Research Conference in Sweden, and Lisbon Jewellery Biennal, Portugal.  As an author she has written articles on related subjects for FORUM+ (BE), Art Jewelry Forum (USA),  The Vessel magazine of Norwegian Crafts (NO) and texturen series, Logos Verlag (DE).

These primary interests evolved into the curation of the artistic research seminar METHOD/ART, which she is co-organising since 2020. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer / Docent at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (2018-the present) focusing on artistic research.

Since 2010, Vivi’s work has been published and shown in gallery and museum exhibitions worldwide. She was born and studied in Athens, Greece, before continuing her education in Germany and Canada. She holds an MFA in the Crafts from Konstfack University in Stockholm and an Advanced Master of Research in Art and Design from Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp.

She lives and works in Berlin and Antwerp, while she always returns back home to Athens.

Instructor: Ioanna I. Lalaouni

This course covers the history of western jewelry from the Middle Ages through to the 21st century. From the reliquaries of Charlemagne in precious materials to contemporary studio works in acrylics, wood and textiles, the course focuses on how political, economic and social developments have left their mark on the art of jewelry. The intriguing constructions of conspiracy rings, mourning brooches made of human and animal hair and modern German headpieces crafted from dried lentils provide an exciting insight into jewelry types and forms that trace the development of jewelry and its role in diverse western societies. Instruction will conclude with fine jewelry designs by Lalique and Faberge to Cartier, Tiffany and finally Ilias Lalaounis as seen in the ILJMuseum.

Instruction will be onsite at the ILJMuseum with slide lectures as well as via field trips to other Athens museums with relevant jewelry collections. Students will have access to the ILJMuseum’s extensive research library and support from museum curators.

Assessment: by written exam (2 hours)

Selected bibliography

• Anna Beatriz-Chadour-Sampson & Ioanna Lalaounis – Tsoukopoulou. ILIAS LALAOUNIS: MODERN REVIVAL OF ANCIENT GOLD Athens, 1998: Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum.
• Cherry, John. Medieval craftsman: Goldsmiths. London: British museum, 1992.
• Hackenbroch, Yvonne. Renaissance Jewellery. London: Phillip Wilson, 1979.
• Lazaridou, Anastasia. Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity, 3rd to 7th Century AD. New York: Alexander S. Onassis Foundation & The Byzantine and Christian Museum, 2011.
• Lightbown, W. Ronald. Medieval European Jewellery. London: The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992.
• Munn, Geoffrey, Munn. Tiaras: Past and Present. London: The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2002.
• Petsopoulos, Yanni. East Christian Art. London: Alexandria Press, 1987.
• Phillips, Chaire. Jewels and Jewellery. London: The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2000.
• Phillips, Claire. Jewelry: From Antiquity to the Present. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
• Scarisbrick, Diana. Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery. London: Tate Publishing and Diana Scarisbrick, 1995.
• Vassilaki, Maria and Cormack, Robin (eds). Byzantium 330 – 1453. Royal College of Art: London, 2009.
• Ward A., Cherry J., Gere C., Cartlidge B. Rings Through the Ages. New York: Rizzoli, 1981.

About Ioanna I. Lalaouni

Ioanna I. Lalaouni is a jewelry historian, and the Director of the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum in Athens, Greece. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Richmond College, London and an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies Degree from Boston University. She has curated a great number of exhibitions on jewelry and the decorative arts both in Athens and abroad, and has authored and/or edited many exhibition catalogues and volumes of collected essays. As the Director and Curator in Chief of the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum since 1993, she has lectured worldwide on the history of European and Greek jewelry.

Email: ioannalalaounis@lalaounis-jewelrymuseum.gr

 

Instructor: Prof. Dimitris Plantzos

This course offers a comprehensive account of the history of ancient Greek jewelry, from c. 1600 BC to c. AD 300, with an emphasis on its forms and types, imagery and content, interpretation, and cultural significance.

Instruction will be in the form of richly illustrated lectures followed by question-and-answer sessions. Students will be given access to all relevant teaching materials, including the images discussed in class.

Assessment: by written exam (2 hours).

Selected bibliography:

• Aik. Despini, Ancient Gold Jewellery. Athens: Ekdotike Athinon (1996).
• E. Kypraiou (ed.), Greek Jewellery. 6,000 Years of Tradition. Athens: Ministry of Culture (1997), pp. 15-22, 61-70.
• D. Plantzos, Hellenistic Engraved Gems. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1999).
• D. Plantzos, Greek Art and Archaeology, c. 1200-30 BC. Atlanta, GA: Lockwood Press (2016), pp. 60-62, 138-139, 216-220, 287-290.
• T.J. Smith and D. Plantzos (eds), A Companion to Greek Art. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell (2012), chapter 10.
• D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold. Jewellery of the Classical World (1994).

 

About Dimitris Plantzos

Dimitris Plantzos is a classical archaeologist, educated at Athens and Oxford. He has published on Greek art, the development of classical archaeology as a discipline in the twentieth century, and on modern receptions of classical heritage. He teaches classical archaeology at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Athens. He is the director of the Argos Orestikon Excavation Project (Kastoria, Greece) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London.

He can be accessed via e-mail: dkplantzos@arch.uoa.gr. Several of his publications are available through academia.edu.