FOREVER RINGS
GERMANY
10 OCTOBER - 23 OCTOBER, 2024

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
When you look at Michael and Bettina’s rings, it feels like you can hear the sound of hammering. Michael Jank and Bettina Dittlmann, a couple who have been forging over 4,000 rings for 26 years, are hosting their ‟Forever Rings” exhibition. Various metal blocks such as gold, silver, iron and copper are pierced and hammered hundreds to thousands of times to create these rings. This forging technique has been practiced since ancient times and for these artists, it is considered the most suitable method for making rings, that will last the longest. Many of the rings we see around us are often made by casting or rounding metal and soldering it together. In contrast, Michael and Bettina’s rings are made by punching holes into solid metal blocks and forging them with a hammer, leaving no seams. They believe this enhances the power and the beauty to the rings. Some might say, ‵‵What’s the difference, if it looks the same, no matter how it’s made?” but: ‵‵YES!” there is a difference. And their rings are the clear answer to that question.
In October, after an unusually long summer heat, we are delighted to present the ‟Forever Rings” exhibition, which encapsulates the soul and lives of two metal artisans, offering something that will strengthen our hearts in this beautiful season.

<VIENNA CALLING>
AUSTRIA
29 MAY - 12 JUNE, 2024

This May is an important month for contemporary jewelry in Seoul. From May 28th to July 28th, the Seoul Museum of Craft Art will host "Beyond Adornment," featuring 55 Austrian contemporary jewelry artists alongside 55 Korean artists.
The exhibition, titled "A Mind of Their Own," coming to Seoul this time, showcas es the works of 55 representative artists from the early days of Austrian contempo rary jewelry in the 1970s to the present, arranged chronologically. Originating from Austria and Germany, this exhibition has now arrived in Korea. To commemorate this, it incorporates the works of 55 Korean jewelry artists, resulting in "Beyond Adornment," which is the largest contem porary jewelry exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art to date.
During this significant period, hosting a simultaneous exhibition of four Austrian artists at GaleryO will greatly contribute to promoting the meaning of contemporary jewelry. The exhibition of the four Austrian artists at GalleryO promises to be an intriguing display, each showcasing the distinct styles of these artists and offering a glimpse into their unique narratives. We hope this exhibition will provide an opportunity for visitors to reconsider the meaning behind the jewelry they wear.

<LUCKY SWINE> YUTAKA MINEGISHI
GERMANY
8 MAY - 21 MAY, 2024

In spring 2024, we present an exhibition by Yutaka Minegishi, an active artist based in Munich. Born in Japan in 1973, Yutaka completed his undergraduate studies at Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry in Tokyo before studying at Pforzheim University and the Munich Academy in Germany in 1995. He has since resided in Germany, steadily practicing as a contemporary jewelry artist, holding vibrant exhibitions in Europe and Japan. Yutaka crafts rings by shaping various large pieces of materials into bold and captivating forms that attract the public.

Yutaka Minegishi, an artist I have had the pleasure of experiencing, is known for his sense of humor. His personality shines through in the current exhibition, 'Lucky Swine.' During Germany's strict isolation period, which was more rigorous than Seoul's, the artist decided to create jewelry that would bring joy amid those bleak times. Drawing inspiration from this, he produced works playfully expressing pig noses and tails for the exhibition. This exhibition has traveled through the United States and now arrives in Seoul. We hope this exhibition brings delight to your eyes.

Miwha Oh

MUNICH JEWELLERY WEEK - MÜNCHEN SCHMUCK 2024
KOREA
28 FEBRUARY - 3 MARCH, 2024

Munich Jewellery Week is an annual, independent, artist-run contemporary jewellery initiative that takes place in the city of Munich every March.

The success of the event, which grows exponentially every year, is in thanks to the spirit of collaboration by jewellery artists and designers from all over the world: students, emerging, mid-career and established art jewellers alike come to present their jewellery on their own terms, and in their own unique ways.

MJW has gained a reputation for being the most important event for the field worldwide, and the number one source for new talent in the field via the most experimental and innovative jewellery presentations one can find.

<IMAGINARY GARDEN> HELENA LEHTINEN
FINLAND
1 NOVEMBER - 14 NOVEMBER, 2023

Walking in the imaginary garden.
Trying to catch the smells and colors . What is real and which I just imagine.
Dreams and reality gets mixed and create new gardens. My gardens.

MAGIC NIGHT IN DAYLIGHT!
SWEDEN
15 JUNE - 29 JUNE, 2022

Every year in Sweden, on the Friday that falls between June 19 and June 25, folks celebrate the start of a unique national holiday kicking off the beginning of the country’s unusually long 5-month summer. It’s a night festival characterized by bright lights, large pillars decorated with beautiful green grass and colorful flowers, and no shortage of great food, music and dancing with friends and family. This summer - GalleryO is proud to announce a special exhibition where we invite four distinguished Swedish contemporary jewelry artists to share their work with the people of Korea. We aim to create a safe place for the pandemic- exhausted Korean audience to interact freely with the artists’ work, in effect taking the same energy from the Magic Night in Daylight and recreating it in Seoul.

<JOURNEY OF VERA SIEMUND> VERA SIEMUND
GERMANY
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As I never before showed work at Korea, except at the Cheongju Craft Biennale in 2013, I decided to show a kind of summary of my work, a selection of round 15 years including newly-made necklaces. All pieces have in common my way of quoting shapes and topics from long ago, items of art history and daily life which I regard worth to be remembered.
While I was very much interested in classicism a couple of years, more recent work quotes from the gothic architecture. Apart from high arts I also consider more trivial designs to be quite attractive as Wilhelminian balconies or the lamps from the seventies. I try to capture its’ associative and narrative power.

Vera Siemund
Von-Ancklen-Straße 12
21029 Hamburg

<MIND · TEARS> DONGCHUN LEE
KOREA
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Mind · Tears

Tears soothe sorrow, heal wounds, and control anger. 
Tears calm joy. 
Tears release surplus feelings and purify the mind.

I gather tears in my heart again today. 
When emotions fill my heart, I empty it with tears.

<MIRROR OF ENVY> EUNMI CHUN
KOREA
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The artist has been making brooches of stainless steel and silver for her latest series " Mirror of envy" using a cool, slick aesthetic for their design. Chun explores the psychosocial function of jewellery in this series of works. As a bearer of symbolic meaning, jewellery points to the social standing of an individual and contributes to that person’s identity formation. In Mirror of envy the artist addresses the discrepancy between self-perception and perception and raises questions about the constructedness of individual self-concepts. The contradictory needs on which fashion is based also apply to jewellery: the aim is, on the one hand, to be recognised and appreciated by a social group and, on the other, to set oneself apart from it through individuality. The size of the brooches is modelled on the generous dimensions of striking statement pieces which people wear to
underscore a glamourous and self-confident appearance. Typically, however, the aesthetic self-perception eludes visual perception while wearing jewellery: »The brain associates ornamentation on the head, neck, torso and back with the corporeal self as markings of the body’s outer boundary; in this sense, the ornamentation is construed as part of the self and not experienced with the senses. In a mirror, man or woman first see themselves as an other, before inferring that they are the person in question«.iv Chun takes up this idea by conceiving the mirror brooches in such a way that the curved surfaces distort the image of the person who looks at him or herself in the mirror. The fractal mirror image instead reflects the ambivalence between subjective and objective perception, between desire and reality.
By Lotte Dinse