Adriena Pekárová
The Gallery X in Bratislava hosted international exhibition Textile Jewellery Alternatives curated by academic painter Silvia Fedorová in May 2009. It was an exceptional exhibition bearing in mind the genre and, attendance of many notable foreign artists in particular. Artworks of foreign and Slovak artists are the representation of the wide range of contemporary opinions on textile jewellery. They all work with the similar techniques and materials which refer to crafts and traditions. However, they come with new ideas, creative techniques and special combinations which make this field of art extraordinary.
That jewellery detached from textile was due to the expansion of bobbin lace making in the 1960s, when the Czech visual artists were discovering new forms of it. However, transformation of jewellery from a decorative element of clothing to an independent artwork has affected the textile jewellery, too. Jewellery artists have added textile and textile-like materials similarly to textile artists, who have applied textile techniques to non-textile materials.
Now, textile jewellery has its notable artists whose artworks are exhibited in the great museums around the world. The above-mentioned exhibition has housed works of some of them, among which is Netherlander Beppe Kessler (1952), the latest winner of the Herbert-Hoffmann-Prize 2009 (she was awarded the same prize in 1997). The prize is awarded at the world jewellery exhibition in Munich. Slovakia was represented by the established artists such as Iveta Miháliková (1962), Blanka Cepková (1966), Silvia Fedorová (1945) and young emerging visual artists Katarína Ondrejková (1979) and Ľubica Poncik (1980).