Nsaio6 : New Jewellery from Idar-Oberstein

Featuring previously unseen photography, this book is a milestone in 21st century art jewellery presentation, and accompanies the exhibition at the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier from 27 November 2016 to 26 February 2017.

Beginning with the renaissance of gemstones in jewelry design since the 1970s, Ute Eitzenhöfer, Theo Smeets, Lothar Brügel (ret. 2014) and Eva-Maria Kollischan (since 2014) successfully established the Hochschule Trier in Idar-Oberstein as a creative European jewelry centre. To mark the exhibition in the Stadtmusem Simeonstift in Trier on thirty years of the Gemstone and Jewellery Department, the publication shows an exciting selection of works from the last ten years. Works in creative design and photography accompany diverse approaches that exemplify the contemporary use of a reputedly ''outmoded'' raw material. In exploring the aesthetic characteristics of the material and the experimental confrontation with its physical qualities, the gemstone''s potential for design comes entirely into its own. Within current discourse it comments ironically, on the one hand, on the unilateral societal ascription as a luxury item; on the other, it functions as a charming and noble object of nature.

Text in English and German.