Artistic Jewelry According to Barbara Lo Bianco

«Artist jewelry is created when an artist — painter, sculptor, photographer — decides to try their hand at an object that is not their usual medium. Take Man Ray, Calder, Picasso, Dalí: figures who normally worked in other fields and who, at a certain point, created jewelry bearing their own stylistic signature. This is the secret: rather than follow the rules of traditional goldsmithing, they imprinted their artistic identity. And it is precisely this identity that makes their jewelry timeless.

Every artist is a child of their era: Calder, Dalí and Picasso were contemporaries and their jewelry reflects the language of that period. However, when we look at these items today, they are still extraordinarily contemporary. Dalí, with his surreal pieces and use of precious stones; Picasso, who experimented with gold and terracotta derived from scraps of his works; Calder, who modeled iron, brass and silver with the same balance as his sculptures. These are creations that never age.

Art remains, while fashion is ephemeral. Jewelry follows trends in stone cutting, decorative motifs and how it is worn. There are evergreen pieces, such as the pavé wedding band, but many items can be traced back to a specific era. Artist jewelry, on the other hand, is art: it never ages, even if the fate of a piece may follow that of the artist. Little-known artists, who were not successful as painters or sculptors, have sometimes made wonderful pieces of jewelry. My advice is to buy them only if you like them: it means wearing art, not economic status.

At Bab's, we are also editors: we produce jewelry with Italian artists, reinterpreting their stylistic signature for the human body. Some artists engage in dialogue with the goldsmith for the first time and completely rethink their modus operandi. The result is unique pieces or very limited editions, sometimes with only eight samples. It is a niche market, but the uniqueness is precisely where the beauty lies.

Personally, I really love Alex Pinna: his intellectually complex project couples eternal materials such as gold with perishable elements such as rope, creating surprising combinations. Then there is Loris Cecchini, who works with modules that “take possession” of the human body in the same way as his sculptures do with buildings. Grazia Varisco, an artist from Gruppo T, brought her research on time to jewelry. And how can we not mention Fontana with his “cut” bracelets, or Giò Pomodoro, who played with volumes and three different types of gold. These are works that transcend seasons and fashions».