This project is a collaboration of two American Professors of Jewelry and Metals curating an exhibition of American contemporary art jewelry to take place at the Super + CENTERCOURT Gallery in Munich, Germany during the annual International Exposition of Trades and Crafts (Handwerksmesse) and the internationally renowned exhibition, Munich Jewelry Week / Schmuck 2017.

Seventeen prominent contemporary art jewelers have been invited to participate along with the two organizers in Duality of Presence an exhibition that explores a movement in American contemporary jewelry and object making where artists aim to reveal hidden narratives through material, format, presentation, and interaction. The works reveal and question histories, lineage, conveyance, and supply chain to expand and contract possible contexts of meaning. In virtual reality a ‘duality of presence’ refers to the user’s ability to be present in both their own reality and another, via technology. This duality of presence highlights a specific approach in American making where artists explore both visible and veiled contexts through material, connecting the objects we make to a multiplicity of perspectives generated by these connections. This exhibition suggests and demonstrates that material specificity conjures both the reality in front of us, and others – at a distance. To be simultaneously viewing the artwork in the gallery, but also be transported by the materials story provides insight to our relationships with objects, materials, and histories through materiality, research, and making.

Exhibiting artist include: Jessica Anderson, Lynn Batchelder, Thea Clark, Nikki Couppee, Motoko Furuhashi, Steven Gordon Holman, Alexandra Hopp, Masumi Kataoka, Joshua Kosker, Tova Lund, Sharon Massey, Jaydan Moore, Wei Lah Poh, Kerianne Quick, Kaiya Rainbolt, Yumi Janairo Roth, Jina Seo, Demitra Thomloudis, and Jess Tolbert.