Dhe jewelery city of Munich, more precisely: the state Neue Sammlung, prepares the stage for an artist who has lived in the city for more than five decades. Therese Hilbert, born in Zurich in 1948, came to the Isar in 1972 as a trained goldsmith with her husband Otto Künzli, both of whom studied with Hermann Jiinger at the Academy of Fine Arts. Künzli took over the chair from Jiinger in 1991 and became a formative figure at the Academy. The monographic show curated by Petra Hölscher also shows that his wife never let her artistic independence be taken away from her.
Hilbert started in 1964 at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich, where she took a preliminary course like the one at the Bauhaus. She gave up her original goal of graphics and opted for the metal class. It has remained the same to this day: Hilbert’s preferred material is silver. The exhibition offers around two hundred and fifty works from more than five decades. The beginnings still breathe the spirit of Calvinistic severity, one of the rare rings and a bangle (1971/72) rely entirely on the geometric perfection of polished silver. As a child of the 1960s, Hilbert looked for ways to democratize jewelry. Triangular pennants cut from plastic bags from the Zurich department store Globus cost twelve marks at the time – and yet they were more than costume jewellery.
Fragrant Brooches
In the 1970s, Hilbert tried her hand at using plastic. She formed cherries into earrings that she simply hung over her ear. Half an apple was awarded a prize at the Academy in 1973: embedded in red foil, the pulp, which is now also smoldering red, creates an almost psychedelic effect. Hilbert experiments with square foil cushions that she fills with fur, colored cotton wool, or short cotton threads that create a strong graphic effect. Fur and cotton ooze out of holes and slits, they can be sprinkled with perfume to create a fragrant brooch. Because wearable, which is important to the artist, are all exhibits.
Also those gestural earrings that, deliberately designed as individual pieces, reach down to the chest of the wearer. Or the disc-shaped containers held by golden clasps that can be opened. At that time a taboo was broken, because gold and silver were not combined if possible. In 1978, Hilbert made her last piece of gold with a necklace that was compelling in its archaic simplicity – a wafer-thin, circular gold plate was folded in the middle to form a semicircle. It’s just not her material, she says. And it would be similar with rings: “I can’t do rings as well as others, so why should I do them?”. She has always worked “for her salvation”, but never designed exclusively for herself.
Her marriage to the famous Otto Künzli meant that Therese Hilbert ended up in the wives program. This is not due to her husband, but to the customs of the male-dominated art market. She is annoyed by the mechanisms of the gallery business, she is particularly annoyed by female gallery owners who treat women worse than men. Her Response: She creates spiked artifacts, including a shoulder-worn pointed brooch that clearly says, Don’t come near me.
Not suitable for the dirndl
The mini skirt was driven out of her in Munich, says Hilbert. Instead, she found an antidote to the city’s inertia in the Bavarian National Museum: medieval pikes, halberds and lances. She was fascinated by the design language of these cutting and thrusting weapons. The variations of stars, which Hilbert played through many times during this time, are also an expression of their resistance. Her jewelry just didn’t go with the dirndl, as a woman you had to “kick twice”. She must have literally pulled out her claws. This attitude is most clearly expressed in a chain of thorns with a rose attached – the chain cannot be worn without injuring oneself.
The groups of works only have airy attributions such as “body”, “vessels” or “bearers of secrets”. This also applies to a silver funnel that hangs crookedly on a long cord somewhere between the breastbone and the stomach of the wearer. It serves as a receiver for signals that are directed towards the soul; conversely, it should itself send out signals to the environment.
In 1996 an interest in volcanoes began, triggered by a hike on the Cyclades island of Nea Kameni. Hilbert collects obsidian and pumice, returns to the studio without sketches or photographs and works from memory. The pieces vary the theme of the fire-breathing mountain, they are called “Embers” or “From the Depths”. Crater lakes can be seen, the milky water of which is covered with colorful lacquer, smoking ash with yellow sulfur plumes. Carved mountain peaks made of blackened MDF fiberboard. The red that provides the title of the exhibition and the cover color of the lavishly designed catalog is an expression of this passion – and paraphrases a sentence by Eugène Ionesco: “I am full of energy, fire and lava. I am a volcano.”
All a metaphor, of course. “We are all volcanoes,” Therese Hilbert is convinced of this. “Some erupt, others lie dormant their whole lives.” Just as seismologists can only partially predict how a volcano behaves, the same is true for humans. In the case of this petite woman, there is no doubt that an artistic outburst is to be expected at any time.
Therese Hilbert – “Red”. Jewelry 1966 to 2020. Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; until July 30th. The catalog (Arnoldsche Art Publishers) costs 38 euros.
#jewelery #artist #Therese #Hilbert #Collection #Munich