Giampaolo Babetto: L’Italianita dei Gioielli / Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich

For his solo show “L’Italianita dei Gioielli” at Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich italian jewelry artist Giampaolo Babetto created an exhibition tailor-made to the circular, light-filled gallery space on the second floor of the rotunda in the Pinakothek der Moderne. In this video we have a look at the exhibition and Dr. Corinna Rösner, Chief Curator of Die Neue Sammlung provides us with an introduction to Giampaolo Babetto’s work.

Giampaolo Babetto (born 1947 in Padua) has had a marked influence on the avant-garde goldsmiths’ scene since the late 1960s. He is one of the protagonists of the so-called Padua School and has significantly moulded the image of art jewellery in Italy. Babetto’s works are decidedly contemporary, distinct and radical with regard to their formal reduction – and deeply rooted in Italian culture. Babetto’s work reflects contemporary art movements such as concrete art, minimal art, kinetic or op art in a unique, purist and plastic manner. Made up of different abstract elements, broken down into modular units, or rendered moveable through the use of ingenious links, Babetto’s works have a tectonic character – like mini architectural pieces or mini sculptures.

The artist prefers working in gold due to its stable malleability and its warm sheen which he combines with unconventional materials such as plastic or glass, dusting the surface with a velvet-like pigment in luminous reds or blues or using enamel and age-old niello-based techniques.

“Babetto’s works mirror a refined aesthetic concept based on dialogue, interrelationships and a blurring of boundaries between art genres.” (Florian Hufnagl, Director of Die Neue Sammlung).

A publication with texts by Dorothea Baumer and Ellen Maurer together with photographs by Ulrike Myrzik and Manfred Jarisch accompagnies the exhibition. An exhibition of Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich In co-operation with Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Munich.

Giampaolo Babetto: L’Italianita dei Gioielli / Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich. March 5, 2010.

Scroll down for the video: Giampaolo Babetto in conversation with Dr. Corinna Rösner (11:31 Min., in German language).

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Jewelry Artist Giampaolo Babetto in Conversation with Dr. Corinna Rösner, Die Neue Sammlung:

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