Karen Pontoppidan

One of the Most Influential Jewelry Artists of Our Time

The work of Karen Pontoppidan marks a sea-change in contemporary jewelry art. In light of the social significance of identity and gender and conscious of the political as well as social mission of art, Pontoppidan believes that her own discipline needs to think outside the box. Her instruments are deconstruction and the innovative renewal of hermaterials. Her themes revolve around fresh starts, attempts to breakfree, and protest. Jettisoning any conventional dogmatic ideas about jewelry, the trained goldsmith and professor of goldsmithing (she taught at Konstfack, Stockholm, from 2006 until 2015 and has been professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich since 2015) has devoted her work as well as her teaching to the question of how her craft can help frame responses to urgent concerns of today.

The book, with essays by Ellen Maurer-Zilioli and Maria Muhle and quotes from Barbara Vinken, Angelika Nollert, Carin Reinders, and others as well as the artist herself, showcases over a hundred works by Karen Pontoppidan from the past twenty years. Given their diversity and sometimes conflicting aesthetics, a reader browsing the pages might be forgiven for thinking that she is looking at works by many different authors. In this way, Pontoppidan challenges traditional notions that identify an oeuvre with the artist behind it, and her gender.