Jewellery as art and/or craft: an investigation of contemporary jewellery collections and collecting in New Zealand museums

Abstract

The museum's role as an arbiter of cultural distinction has long been recognised. Its authority, along with the processes of selection and classification inherent in the fundamental museum functions of collection and display, have combined to make it one of the key boundary-riders of the field of cultural reproduction. In this dissertation, the historical development of the art/craft divide, and the relationship of museums and art history are investigated through museum collections and collecting, a prime institutional location and apt record of changing cultural values. This study therefore considers the question: 'How and why is contemporary jewellery being collected by New Zealand museums?' Impelled by the concerns of contemporary craft practitioners and studio jewellers who believe that their work does not receive the institutional support they feel entitled to as artists, this dissertation uses museum collecting or non-collecting of contemporary jewellery as a lens through which to investigate current institutional positions and views on the art/craft divide. This research employs a number of methods to investigate the collections and collecting of decorative arts in museums. These include surveys of New Zealand public museum collections to ascertain which museums are collecting contemporary jewellery and how it is constituted within the collections, and archival research into the history, mission and policies of selected institutions. Museum staff who work within the institutional structure to shape the direction of the collections were also interviewed, in order to measure the effect these factors have on their collecting decisions. The dissertation proposes that the collecting practices of New Zealand museums are subject to a number of constraining factors, and these factors are examined in order to provide an institutional perspective on the art/craft debate. In contrast to those who argue that the art/craft divide no longer exists, this dissertation finds that the art/craft paradigm has a continuing impact on New Zealand museum practices. Modernism's legacy of marginalisation for craft-based art prevails both at institutional and personal levels, in the fact that the majority of museums do not collect contemporary jewellery (only three were found to be building significant jewellery collections) and also in the practices of those who do collect it. However, the specific historical development of each institution, its policies and organisational structure along with the scope of the existing collection, were also found to play a major part in determining collecting activities, sometimes resulting in the acquisition of contemporary jewellery and sometimes not. Limited resources and the desire to build distinctive collections leads many New Zealand museums to focus their efforts towards building on existing collection strengths. The personal enthusiasms of curators also have a large impact on the direction of collection development.