For his Shards From Moritzplatz Berlin Necklace (1983–84), Bernhard Schobinger strung together antique crystal beads, television bulbs, and broken shards of a German Coca-Cola bottle. The items were all scavenged from Moritzplatz, at the time a gathering place for punks and Neue Wilden artists in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. The unlikely combination captures the Swiss jeweler’s anti-aesthetic approach, with precious stones threaded alongside the political and consumer detritus of the time.
A towering figure in contemporary jewelry, Schobinger has spent the past five decades treating the form as a subversive medium, working with everything from barbed wire and fishing lures to asphalt and broken toys. Going Underground: The Jewels of Bernhard Schobinger, on view through January 3, 2027, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the first US exhibition devoted to his work, which curators Cindi Strauss and Elizabeth Essner describe as, “complex assemblages in which found and precious materials coexist, challenging traditional hierarchies of value.”
NYC 1980, 1980, metal, asphalt, and wire.
