Svenja John Jewelry Auteur by Marjorie Simon
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Svenja John Jewelry Auteur by marjorie simon Lapido (bracelet), 2001 Breath (brooch), 2001 polycarbonate polycarbonate width 4 3 ⁄8" diameter 3 1⁄2" photo: silke mayer photo: silke mayer 24 METALSMITH | V O L . 3 1 | N O . 3 V O L . 3 1 | N O . 3 | METALSMITH 25 of jewelry making, German artist Svenja John muses, The potency of John’s a thermoplastic polymer only a larger community of jewelry artists, but also access “I think you must be an auteur.” Coined by French film jewelry stems from manufactured by Bayer to inexpensive and available East Berlin real estate. The city director Jacques Truffaut, the term describes directors her skill in balancing AG and known in the was on its way to becoming the vibrant and creative center whose command of the medium, technical competence, form and color. United States as Lexan. that it is today. personal style, and “authorship” of their work is unmistakable. It is lightweight, stable, In 1991 John returned to school in Hanau for her John believes jewelers must do no less: they must “own” their strong, flexible, and Master’s Diploma, and it was during this time that a work, it should be well made, and like that of no one else. If almost infinitely recyclable. Easily worked, molded, and professor introduced her to polycarbonate. Then, with her this is true, John is the Werner Herzog of polycarbonate, the thermoformed, it is highly impact resistant, and able newly minted degree and several years’ experience behind plastic from which all of her jewelry is made. to tolerate a wide temperature range.1 Due to its high her (between degrees she supported herself and learned the Plastic can no longer be considered an alternative refractive index, it retains a luminous translucency, even value of benchwork by designing for industry in platinum), material in jewelry. “Auteur jewelry” is already being made when abraded. Like metal, Lexan can be bent on a brake at she headed for Berlin. She joined a group of seven young from many different kinds of prime and recycled materials. room temperature or in a tight radius while cold. It absorbs companies who shared an old factory floor in an affordable Assembled like some ethereal yet indestructible twenty- paint and the surface can be sanded to a frosty finish and neighborhood near the former Wall. Among them was an first-century origami architecture, John’s kaleidoscopic otherwise treated much like metal. Among its many uses are advertising studio whose proactive approach to marketing brooches and bracelets are sliced and slotted from flat sheet numerous medical applications, eyeglass lenses, riot shields, helped her get the word out about her exciting and original into three dimensions, resulting in a fractured repetition of CDs and CD cases, toys, bulletproof windows, automobile plastic jewelry. She began to attract a new client base Maros (bracelet), 2002 elemental colored forms. As if seen through a microscope, headlights, and greenhouse enclosures. outside traditional goldsmithing circles. In the studio she polycarbonate width 3 1 ⁄8" the pieces recall scientific models of crystalline, organic Born in 1963, the year of President Kennedy’s triumphal fabricated her new jewelry from sheets of polycarbonate photo: silke mayer structures such as diatoms, or tumbling pollen grains visit to Berlin, John grew up in Duisberg, an ancient town film, cutting out the multiple parts by hand with nail scissors. realized in international colors: Dutch orange, Caribbean in the great steel-producing Ruhr region of West Germany. She was aware of waterjet cutting, a cold cutting process blue, Mexican yellow. Maros, a bracelet from 2002, resembles She came of age during a divided Germany and now lives controlled by computer, but it was not until 1996 and 1997 nothing so much as a blastula, the early embryonic stage in Berlin, an international city with its own haunted that she began to have components cut with this technique. in animal development. Transparent, it contains a secret past. After studying archaeology at Ruhr University for2 In the spring of 1996, a pregnant friend invited John collection of colored nuclei. two years, her true interest prevailed and she went to to take over her booth at the prestigious Ambiente The potency of John’s jewelry stems from her skill study goldsmithing at the Goldsmith’s School (Staatliche Frankfurt trade fair, and for the first time John presented in balancing form and color. She uses color visually and Zeichanakadamie Hanau) in Hanau, an industrial town that her polycarbonate jewelry to an international audience. emotionally, deftly pairing and contrasting complementary has been a leading center of jewelry manufacturing since She showed only two bracelet designs. Taking advantage hues and playing with translucency and opacity. Asked the sixteenth century. of the material’s lack of preciousness, she jettisoned the about her “heroes” or influences, she names American German education for jewelers is a long and thorough vitrine, and the kinetic, colorful polygons, displayed openly painters Frank Stella and Peter Halley, artists who use process. Higher education is followed by technical training, on tables, communicated an unexpected intimacy with light and color in geometric arrangement, though in truth which is itself followed by a “Master’s Diploma.” Students buyers. Her fresh designs, in riotous color, supported by her understanding of color puts her in league with the must have “praxis,” a practicum with a working artist; as her goldsmith’s craftsmanship, created quite a buzz. Bugi Impressionists too. As a colorist, Halley does seem to be a many as ten years might elapse between entering university (1996), a free-form bracelet reminiscent of a Judy Pfaff kindred spirit. John’s translucent jewelry is reminiscent and emerging into the field as a working jeweler. It goes sculpture with its wildly patterned polychrome elements, of Halley’s palette of near-fluorescent, urban pink, aqua, without saying that by the time these young jewelers enter anticipated the more integrated designs to come. It would Palido (bracelet), 2001 orange, and acid green. And like Halley, her themes have to the world arena, they are skilled and confident practitioners. not be an overstatement to say that this exhibition and polycarbonate width 3 1 ⁄8" do with repetition and change, expressed through color. John received her first degree in Hanau in 1989. A few the ensuing connections she made catapulted John onto photo: silke mayer John works exclusively in Makrolon brand polycarbonate, months later came the first of two global events to affect the the international design map, and she immediately course of her career: the fall of the Berlin Wall. began accumulating awards and prizes. For one thing, The full impact of German reunification may not be the manufacturers of Makrolon supported her because of clear to outsiders, especially to Americans.3 The partition her innovative use of their material. In 1999, she won the and occupation that followed World War II affected the arts, Landespreis Berlin, an international design prize, then as well as every other part of German culture. In contrast twice received the Bayerischer Staatspreis, Munich, and the to the dominance of social realism in the East, “in West coveted Herbert Hofmann Prize in Munich in 2004. Germany the pluralistic movements of the postwar Moderns In 1997, John’s Bracelet No. 1, a combination of white were influential,” says art historian Dr. RenateL uckner painted plastic and stainless steel parts, was shown in Bien.4 Yet both East and West shared the values of “usability, an issue of Design Report, a design magazine printed in artisanal perfection, simplicity, [and] appropriate materials” Germany but published worldwide. The same year, John’s in the decorative arts.5 In the end, the postwar period led jewelry was then shown at the opening exhibition of to very different kinds of jewelry. Until 1989 East German the Material ConneXion headquarters, a global materials artists worked in virtual isolation. Because materials were consultancy in New York,7 which led to an invitation to scarce, they were accustomed to improvising, and their Premiere Classe, a Paris Fashion Week accessory trade fair work had a raw and primeval beauty.6 As a student in West considered to be indispensable for fashion designers.8 After Bugi (bracelet), 1996 Germany in the 1980s, John was certainly aware of the a few years at Premiere Classe, John met haute couture polycarbonate differences between East and West German artists. Then designer Christian Lacroix, who asked her to design jewelry width 2 3 ⁄4" Palido (detail), 2001 photo: jörg fahlenkamp after 1989, everything changed. A unified Berlin meant not for his 1999–2000 and 2000–01 collections. Those years photo: silke mayer 26 METALSMITH | V O L . 3 1 | N O . 3 V O L . 3 1 | N O . 3 | METALSMITH 27 Rudny (bracelet), 2007 Orel (brooch), 2007 polycarbonate polycarbonate width 3 1⁄2" 4 x 4 1⁄4 x 3 ⁄4" photo: tivadar nemesi photo: tivadar nemesi 28 METALSMITH | V O L . 3 1 | N O . 3 V O L . 3 1 | N O . 3 | METALSMITH 29 Lipka (brooch), 2010 X001 (necklace), 2004 polycarbonate polycarbonate diameter 4 3 ⁄8" length 22 3 ⁄4" photo: tivadar nemesi photo: silke mayer were a youthful hive of hyperkinetic activity, deadlines, and larger than life, the pieces’ miraculous construction is Parisian excitement. visible, allowing viewers to see how a component might be Then came the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the configured to create an entirely new form with an entirely collapse of the international luxury market. John says, different emotional valence. “All the foreign customers who normally visited the fashion Although John produces her bracelets in series, each one shows in Europe, especially Paris, canceled their flights.” is unique, with designs reconfigured with new colors every The two years it took to recover was too long for many six months.