Celebrating Eighty: Art in the Hand, The Goldsmiths’ Centre, 42 Britton Street, London EC1, until 20^th April 2017

Stephanie Holt, Weight of the World,
Winner of the Grand First Prize
© Photography Stephen Dodd, British Museum

The British Art Medal Society’s 24^th Student Medal Project seeks to keep the art of bronze casting alive and well.  This year’s delightfully engaging exhibition combines eighty contemporary art medals by students from UK art colleges with work by the renowned Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli and some of his former students who are marking his 80^th birthday.

Parviz Tanavoli, Hand on Hand
© Photography Stephen Dodd, British Museum

The noted goldsmith, sculptor and medal maker Julian Cross sums it up well saying: “The medal, as object, with all its constraints, can act like a half open door. We, the viewers, are on one side looking through the opening. But the artist has a job to do on the other side, to engage, communicate and express. The narrower the gap in the door makes the artist rise all the more to the challenge, working harder and smarter to be seen and heard. This is when the art medal comes into its element; it can be a highly charged object, beautiful or ugly, it can appear to be as soft as watercolours, as sad as a lock of hair, as violent as an explosion, as political as a revolution, it can sing, shout, whisper, cry and laugh.” 

I Count Goats, Linda Crook, 2008.
Photography Stephen Dodd, British Museum

www.goldsmiths-centre.org/whats-on