This wonderful and sympathetic book follows Caroline Broadhead’s works through their development of Textiele Werkvormen or Textile Works from jewellery, to wearable objects and designing by acting, site-specific installation and the performance back to jewellery forms.
Two beautifully conceived essays describe the progress very well.
Art Jewelry Forum wrote on both authors: “Liesbeth den Besten is an art historian, based in the Amsterdam region, who works as an independent writer, teacher, lecturer, and curator. Presently, she teaches jewelry history at Sint Lucas Antwerpen. She is the chairwoman of the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation for contemporary jewelry, a member of the advisory board of the Chi ha paura…? Foundation, and a founding member of Think Tank, a European Initiative for the Applied Arts. Her book, On Jewellery: A Compendium of International Contemporary Art Jewellery, was published by Arnoldsche in November 2011.”
“Jorunn Veiteberg has a PhD in art history from the University of Bergen, Norway. She has been head of exhibitions at Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen and Galleri F15 in Moss, Norway, and head of arts at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. She was editor-in-chief of the Norwegian arts and craft magazine Kunsthandverk from 1998 to 2007, and adjunct professor in creative curating at the Kunst-og designhøgskolen i Bergen (Bergen Academy of Art and Design) from 2007 to 2014. She is currently a freelance writer and guest professor at School of Design and Crafts at Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden. Among her publications are Sigurd Bronger: Laboratorium Mechanum (2011); Konrad Mehus: Form Follows Fiction (2012); “Between Common Craft and Uncommon Art: On Wood in Jewellery,” in From the Coolest Corner (2013); “Visual Pleasures,” in Daniel Kruger: Between Nature and Artifice Jewellery 1974 – 2014 (2014); “In defence of repetition,” in Différence et Répétition (2014); and “Magic Miniatures,” in Felieke van der Leest: The Zoo of Life: Jewellery and Objects 1996 – 2014 (2014).”
After the two essays the book follows Broadheads’ work in development with pages full of photos and captions.
With the compliments to the publisher, this comprehensive book is a time capsule that each student should read in order to know how to become freed from those straight jackets whose suffocating boundaries other people have erected when creating rules for their disciplines. As well, a book that all collectors should study to envision what is possible in the textile arts which follow developments in international art and design.
Angela van der Burght