How can we make a distinction between art and design without labels? This is an important question for the recent international jewelry, taking into account that they coexist. In other words, they are contemporary to each other.

Both are often presented side by side in exhibitions, where our glance, by itself, is unable to distinguish art from design. There is a lot connecting these two major types. But the shape, the colors, the matters or the textures are insufficient conditions to lay down a distinction. To elaborate or to order series are not conditions able to define something as well. According to these parameters, Pop artists were already creating series. The function (aim or purpose) – or its absence – will perhaps constitute a frontier between these two fields, even though this does not trigger any short-circuit from the reception’s point of view, which is only focused on the act looking. In any case, any sort of jewelry can have a function, i.e., to be used in the body, even though their intentions may vary.

Design always has a function, albeit the fact that a jewel does not have blatantly obvious purposes like chairs, pots, closets, etc. do. Its purpose is a symbolic one, we don’t look at it through obvious lenses. But a jewel outlined by a designer has, in this measure, symbolic functions whose nature is cultural and social. It shows, for instance, the wearer’s status – economic or social – and/or its author’s representativeness, in its contextual nature, whether in a confined or even in an international scope. It also works as an ornament, laying on one’s apparel, which is worn on the skin or within it – like earrings or piercings.

As Kant already argued, art is endless, i.e., it doesn’t serve a function. It encompasses aesthetic ideas, as he put, which are equivalent to embodied meanings, as Arthur Danto used to write. Art, with an autonomous nature – in other words, independent from political, religious or contextual reasons – contains symbols created by artists. In works, they appear as symbols, as non-replicable metaphors, equivalents to those of poetry or, even, citations of other works, amplifications or other large-scale changes – as it happens with Roy Lichtenstein’s BD images. It includes as well metaphorical references to art, to life or to its contemporaries’ world, which have rekindled each artist’s attention.

Even though the so-called contemporary jewelry – regarded as so due to its approximation to contemporary art – can be used on the apparel, it is not an ornament, i.e., it does not have the function to ornament or decorate. It holds aesthetic ideas, just like any current art. Metaphors, citations or large-scale changes become images that argue about the world and life, about art, about what jewelry was and is. It does that using tangible, or if we prefer, tactile symbols, which was always the case with jewelry. In this regard, it stands out among other forms of art. But, since it contains symbols already created, these cannot be perceived through vision. If any work, for any reason, grabs our attention, one always needs to listen to the artist who created it, in order to know his intentions and interpretations. The titles of the pieces, like it happens with any art, also supports us in order to better apprehend the works. The contemporary jewelry is often half-breed, i.e., it holds artistic intentions which intertwine themselves with subtle handicrafts.

Thus, we do not rely on our glance to distinguish contemporary jewelry, of artistic nature, from design – which is also contemporary. This is a work that has to be carried out with self-reflection. The renowned Gold Makes You Blind bracelet, of Otto Künzli, is a form of art, despite the fact that it looks like, in hindsight, a minimalistic piece of design. It takes us back to a blindness caused by this attraction to gold, to which one adds, if not properly perceived, the sumptuousness, the nefarious human principles, the exploitation of miners. Here, the black rubber absorbs a golden sphere, making it invisible, as if it was moving back to a mine’s depths. The Square Root necklace, of José Carlos Marques, can also be perceived as a piece outlined by a designer. However, it brings us back to a metaphor about and made of corkwood, over the square root of multiple misaligned rectangles, about something unpronounceable and inexact, only discernible through encrypted symbols. We are used to think that design encompasses minimalistic pieces, such as the ones of Ana Albuquerque, which argues here about some rite of passage or birth. However, there are pieces created by designers which are a bit more baroque, such as Cheio de Ramo of Liliana Guerreiro, which takes us back to a form of filling, in filigree, which was given the same name.

Design is a process that is taken through paths, and sometimes marks, which, among others, can predict what types of customers will be attracted by it. In contrast, art doesn’t predict anything in terms of how it will be perceived, it makes itself available to dialogue and aesthetic experiences. Again, only self-reflection takes us through paths that cannot nor should be labeled.