Accessory fans better mark their calendars.
The Museum of Arts and Design’s MAD About Jewelry event returns next week, taking over the third floor at 2 Columbus Circle from May 6 to 9.
Now in its 26th year, the annual showcase and sale will bring together 45 contemporary jewelers from 20 countries with Egypt and Slovenia being represented for the first time by Fatma Mostafa and Srečko Molk, respectively.
Earrings by Fatma Mostafa.
Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design
Bryna Pomp, MAD About Jewelry’s director and curator, looked at nearly a thousand collections before selecting the final participants. “I’m strategizing a very diverse presentation of materials, design directions, and inspirations among all the artists I choose to invite,” she said.
Rattling off metals like a periodic table, Pomp added, “there’s jewelry in every kind: gold, silver, brass, bronze, aluminum, titanium, and all kinds of alternative materials, too.” These include glass, wood, fabric and upcycled objects, an increasingly important medium for Pomp’s cadre of sustainably minded makers.
A necklace by Clélia Chotard.
Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design
A cuff by Srečko Molk.
Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design
Molk, for example, reclaims skateboard decks, elevating them with precious gems and natural gold from the Drava river, while Argentina native Andrea de Navarrete sculpts flower petals using discarded coffee capsules. Clélia Chotard, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, extracts painted disks from 18th- and 19th-century ceramic plates, which she sets like stones to create necklaces, bracelets and even cufflinks.
Men’s-specific (or, at least, unisex) jewelry is another focus, according to Pomp, who said there will be lots of leather pieces and smaller-sized earrings on display as well as brooches — a hit among Hollywood’s leading actors that’s gaining legs away from the red carpet.
A brooch by Andrea de Navarrete.
Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design
To kick off the exhibition, there will be an opening benefit preview Tuesday, allowing guests exclusive shopping access, followed by a buffet dinner attended by the jewelers at Robert restaurant on the top floor of MAD. Then on Thursday, the museum’s chair emerita Barbara Tober will host a joint luncheon and panel with speakers including Lynn Yaeger, Judy Geib and senior curator Barbara Paris Gifford.
All of this falls on the same week as the Met Gala, where the jewelry has become as hot a topic as the fashion. But rather than being overshadowed by it, Pomp said the timing aligns nicely with her mission: “I just think it sets this extraordinary mood of looking for the unusual, the spectacular, and that’s what MAD About Jewelry is all about.”
