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Jewelry: The Body Transformed

Start Date 12 November 2018
End Date 24 February 2019
Venue The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET)
Location New York, USA
Curator Melanie Holcomb
Co-curated by: Joanne Pillsbury, Beth Carver Wees
Supported by: Mark Emmanuel
Exhibition display of glass cases of jewellery

What is jewelry? Why do we wear it? What meanings does it carry? Traversing time and space, this exhibition explores how jewelry acts upon and activates the body it adorns. This global conversation about one of the most personal and universal of art forms brings together some 230 objects drawn almost exclusively from The Met collection. A dazzling array of headdresses and ear ornaments, brooches and belts, necklaces and rings are shown along with sculptures, paintings, prints, and photographs that enrich and amplify the many stories of transformation that jewelry tells.

The exhibition is made possible by Albion Art Co. Ltd.

Additional support is provided by Ming Chu Hsu, Lulu and Anthony Wang, the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund, Diane Carol Brandt, the Druckenmiller Foundation, Galerie Magazine, and Barbara A. Wolfe.

The catalogue is made possible in part by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.

Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art