The smallest exhibition in the world

5 hours ago

2 min read

What if the most radical exhibition in the city were not in a museum?

Every October, Milano Jewelry Week does something curious. It brings together more than four hundred makers from some sixty countries and scatters them across the city: workshops, galleries, courtyards, all the way to the two palazzi on Corso Venezia. At Palazzo Bovara, the artist jewellery of Artistar Jewels; at Palazzo Serbelloni, the knowledge of the hand at The Jewelry Hub. But the real exhibition space is somewhere else. It is the body.

AI jewellery campaign by Vertigini Studio: a winged necklace worn on the collarbone — Winged necklace, high-jewellery campaign — Vertigini Studio

The body as a room

A jewel is an exhibition on the move. A collarbone is its wall, an earlobe its plinth, and the audience changes on every street. It is also the only work of art you can take to dinner.

AI jewellery image by Vertigini Studio for Milano Jewelry Week: aquamarine crocodile earring in light reflected from water — Aquamarine earring, Milano Jewelry Week series — Vertigini Studio

A bracelet, a teacup, a heart

Artists understood this early. In 1936 Meret Oppenheim shows Picasso a fur-covered bracelet she designed for Schiaparelli. He jokes that you could cover anything in fur. She replies: even this cup. And so, from a piece of jewellery, the most famous object of Surrealism is born.

In 1953 Dalí builds a ruby heart that actually beats, the Royal Heart. The jewel was already an installation, only smaller.

AI jewellery campaign by Vertigini Studio: emerald and ruby drop earrings — Emerald and ruby earrings, high-jewellery campaign — Vertigini Studio

AI jewellery image by Vertigini Studio for Milano Jewelry Week: blue satin ballet shoes with a necklace laid on top — Ballet shoes and necklace, Milano Jewelry Week series — Vertigini Studio

Change the installation, never the work

At Vertigini we work inside this idea. With artificial intelligence we build the rooms of exhibitions that could never exist: a powder-pink room where the air stands still, a nape lit by a single ochre light, an ice cave for an aquamarine. The walls can be reinvented endlessly. The work cannot: every stone stays in place, every link keeps its weight. It is the rule of every good curator: you change the installation, never the work.

AI jewellery image by Vertigini Studio for Milano Jewelry Week: diamond scorpion worn on the forehead on a black cord — The scorpion on the brow, Milano Jewelry Week series — Vertigini Studio

AI necklace campaign Crazy Neck by Vertigini Studio: shackle pendant on the nape — Crazy Neck: the shackle becomes a pendant — Vertigini Studio

Thinking with the world

Édouard Glissant wrote that we must act in our own place and think with the world. This week Milan does it with objects weighing a few grams. Go and see the smallest exhibition in the world. You will find it everywhere, worn by someone.