Radical. Skubic. JewelryEditor. Florian HufnaglDie Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg

“233.GH”

“Jewelry is an intellectual discipline”

Editorial. Florian Hufnagl

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Jewelry is an intellectual discipline, as Peter Skubic suggests. And if we consider the history of contemporary one-off jewelry, jewelry d’auteur, specifically in the context of art, namely as the history of art, then all of this has essentially to do with Peter Skubic and with his oeuvre since the 1960s. Very early on jewelry artist Peter Skubic turned his back on what is called ‘noble’ material and what one associates with ‘goldsmiths’ or ‘ornamentation’ in the customary sense. He did so for political reasons, because he had a revolutionary take on things, because he simply did not wish to bow down to convention. His beginnings appeared more or less conventional: He completed classical training in metalworking as a master craftsman, and then studied from 1954-8 at Vienna’s Academy of Applied Arts under Eugen Mayer, then Director of the Workshop Class for Metal, Gold and Silver-smithery. Some traces of this can be potentially discerned in his designs through to the 1970s, namely in the figurative shapes and in the granular-like decors; works that you can see in this exhibition and which according to Skubic are part of his personal “sexual atlas”. However, from the outset there were other, very different influences that were decisive in shaping his future oeuvre. For example, he received his first training as a craftsman at a school that was specialized in steel-cutting techniques. Helmuth Gsöllpointner, his companion from his time in Linz, described this in an interview we did with him in fall 2010. Peter Skubic moved in a world shaped by acquaintanceships with artists such as Walter Pichler and Helmuth Gsöllpointner, not to mention outstanding personalities such as Daniel Spoerri and Eduardo Paolozzi, whose influences we can clearly discern in his oeuvre. And he moved in the world of Vienna and Action Art. And was last but not least shaped by his activities at the Salzburg Summer Academy. In 1974, Skubic organized a symposium entitled “Schmuck aus Stahl [Jewelry of Steel]”, and

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thus defined his future path – objects made of hard, cool steel became his trademark. Indeed, he went further still. In 1975, Skubic had a small stainless steel plate implanted under his skin, a declaration of intent, as it were. Seven years later the plate was removed surgic-ally and has since resided like a relic, sealed and invisible, in the chest-shaped head of a ring. Two scars on his body attest to the action, which, notably, took place in the cinema of Vienna’s Museum of the 20th Century and was captured on film. This is striking, as it shows that he construed the operation as a performance that could only be preserved in the medium of moving images and, like a relic, in the shrine of memory. In 1981, Skubic with his piece “Irritation” created another milestone in the history of jewelry. The pointed tip of a sewing machine needle fixed in a quite common band-aid above an eyebrow ended directly in front of Skubic’s pupil. This piece was again not intended to be permanent, and again the photographic documentation ensured it endured. All this illustrates a radical break with conventional ideas on jewelry. Skubic became one of the leading protagonists of an anti-jewelry movement. He provocatively claimed, “I make political jewelry” and “jewelry is an intellectual discipline”. There is probably no other representative of his genre who has devoted himself so extens-ively and consistently to the definition of jewelry while so consistently avoiding it. Peter Skubic’s real passion lies in friction, more in repeated questioning than in the answer. And this passion materializes in jewelry which in Skubic’s case probes the boundaries of consumability, comprehensibility and indeed, existence. This is demonstrated by far more works than just the two aforementioned ones. Another of his actions in 2001 involved the melting and dissolu-tion of an object – the material being highly toxic quicksilver (mercury). You could call it the most radical of materials in the medium of jewelry which tends, conventionally, to be based on imperishable values. What remains is a video recording. And in this spirit, he also creates

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“an imagined ring on a non-existing page” or a “pedestal for invisible rings”. The jewelry first materializes in the head of the observer. There is unwearable jewelry and a (jewelry) sculpture which wears the artist – wear and be worn. There are performances, be they cooking/eating events with Daniel Spoerri in Cologne or Skubic alone in the Tanglberg Gallery in Vorchdorf with invited guests. There is the climb-ing of Mount Everest with a mountaineering friend, four days and nights on a ladder on the banks of the Lower Rhine. Yet there are also tangible, graspable works, and is it by no means always jewelry you can wear on the body. Martial, bulky compositions alternate with playful and surreal arrangements. Knives balanced on their ends on a table edge, each flanked by a military vehicle. The object is entitled “Warsaw”. The knives and military toys were made in North Vietnam, exported to Poland and purchased in Warsaw by Peter Skubic. In the midst of the Cold War. Fragments of dolls – broken discarded pieces used as shoreline stabilization found in the vicinity of a Thuringia porcelain factory; but it could also be rusted nails, with weights attached and lined up in a fantastic dance. Box-shaped brooches with bracing, rigid steel wire constructions, heavy milled rings, totems … It’s all about maxing out tension, unstable, hard-earned balance. This not only goes for Peter Skubic’s small-sized jewelry and works but also for his large sculptures. Aggressiveness is often mentioned in this context. Yet in my opinion it is more a special form of tension in balance – ingenious proportions which Skubic himself refers to as “optical music”: “When the proportions succeed something is made to oscillate, functioning like a line of resonating tuning forks.” Notwithstanding this, jewelry for Peter Skubic sometimes has to do with other surreptitious aspects, with evocation and memory. This can be seen in, for example, the “Idols”, brooches

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featuring a strict tectonic form. Skubic becomes the evoker of a fragile balance in fine tuning with various opposing forces, from attraction to repulsion. And: You can attach the whole of Austria to your lapel in the form of a brooch, although only in miniature form with the borders established after the fall of the Danube Monarchy. But inscribed with AEIOU: Austria erit in orbe ultima. (For those unfamiliar with Latin, the im-perial slogan: All the earth shall be Austria’s subject; also: Austria will be the last (surviving) in the world). It is just as well this piece of jewelry was not marketed but is stored safely in a museum. It is difficult to understand jewelry artist Peter Skubic without his raising awareness on the subject of jewelry which has accompanied his own work since the 1970s, or more aptly, which cannot be separated from it. Skubic has become an untiring advocate of jewelry as art as “one of the most exciting artistic expressive forms”, as he once described it. The connection between jewelry and art may seem obvious to the specialist and connoisseur but in museums and the academic field a clear separation into hierarchically separate disciplines is still the norm: handcraft here, more highly valued liberal arts there. Yet what is more liberal than one-off jewelry? Peter Skubic has co-initiated the debate on the rightful place of jewelry and actively drove it forward. He systematically sought to stir up controversy through his own work by taking a stance, and in his passionate work as a teacher, artistic advisor and curator of numerous exhibitions. He has succeeded in introducing jewelry into the “hallowed halls” of art, for example in 1980 with the exhibition “Schmuck International 1900-1980” (International Jewelry 1900-1980) held in Vienna Künstlerhaus; in 1983 he entered the Cologne Kunstverein with a presentation by his jewelry class; and last but not least he curated an exhibition of contempo-rary jewelry from Austria at the Venice Biennial in 1984, together with Viennese collector and

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gallerist Inge Asenbaum and her Galerie am Graben, to mark some of the steps along the way in the career of the agent provocateur. His notoriously famous statement, “Jewelry can be worn … otherwise jewelry is kept in safes, buried in the ground, lies around in show cases, hangs on the wall, is stored in galleries, gathers dust in collections, degenerates in museums” brought him many opponents, yet has never stopped him seeking collaborations with collectors, galleries and museum staff. This was particularly evident in 1993 when he decided to hand his private jewelry collec-tion over to our museum, Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich. (Notabene: this was not a matter of self-promotion, of his own works, but the works of some of his jewelry-making acquaintances.) This was done, however, under the essential condition that the one-off jewelry would find an active forum in the future in the Neue Sammlung. A step, as was his intention, which bore the right consequences. This has enabled the Neue Sammlung to integrate other extensive donations such as those from Galerie Spektrum, but also from a variety of jewelry artists. The jewelry collection of the Danner Foundation, for instance, was also handed over backed by the financial commitment of this foundation which culminated in the establishment of the Danner Rotunda here at Pinakothek der Moderne. Thus since 2004, the Neue Sammlung (since 2010 featuring the newly curated exhibition) has been able to show to a broad interested public outstanding 20th-century jewelry within a large framework – embedded in an aesthetic dialog with art, architecture, and design. No other place in the world has achieved anything similar to such an extent and with such stringency – without doubt a very distinctive feature of our museum. Without the initial impulse of Peter Skubic this would hardly have been possible. Jewelry by Peter Skubic raises doubt, fascinates, repels – in any event it stimulates emo-tions. Is the idea superior to the form? Is the idea alone what prevails? Has it gone too far?

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Has jewelry with its creations at last achieved the status of liberal art, changing its métier? Skubic refuses to be pinned down, true to his motto, “If we know what anti-jewelry is, then it is easier to understand what jewelry is.” The publication at hand intends to present and discuss the above aspects. It accompanies a Neue Sammlung exhibition in the Pinakothek der Moderne, bringing art, architecture, art on paper and design together under one roof – what could be a more fitting place!