Black to White

The Caroline Van Hoek Gallery in Brussels presents “Black to White”, an exhibition on the work of industrial and jewelry Dutch deisgner Gijs Bakker, who’s celebrating his one and a half jubilee. 

  Shortly after finishing his training as a jewelry maker, in the social heat of the 60’s, Gijs Bakker implemented his freshly acquired skills in a subversive, questioning and self-examining practice. Against establishment, against conventions, against traditions, together with his wife Emmy van Leersum and a group of like-minded fellow jewelers from all over Europe, they initiated a true revolution in jewelry, shifting the notions of value.

In 1967 Gijs and Emmy organized a jewelry/fashion show at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It was an utterly bold statement and a breakthrough. Mingling jewelry with fashion, performance and body art, Bakker and Van Leersum extracted jewelry from its deadly velvet-lined cases, and impacted lastingly the jewelry world. In his early works, Gijs Bakker tackled the traditional understanding of jewelry by focusing on two aspects: questioning the material and re-defining the relationship to the body. Material wise, he embraced the subversiveness of his time and flipped seemingly static rules: Jewelry could be made of anything; the qualities of the material could determine the shape of the outcome. Ideas of intrinsic value and heritage were challenged.

Black to White, the eponymous necklace is a tribute to bold/bald personalities which, in their time and throughout their career stood for a cause, fought for their convictions and kept their integrity in their respective fields of action. The brooch Self-Portrait representing the artist, bald, chiseled in an aureole-like gold disc, suggests a level of identification with these personalities.

form 9 March to 29 April 2017
Black to White
Caroline Van Hoek Gallery
Rue aux Laines 46, Brussels