Every year in March, the world’s art jewellery community gathers in Munich for the prestigious Munich Jewellery Week. Each time there are more jewellery friends and more shows. This year presented around one hundred exhibitions of contemporary jewellery throughout the city.

The independent, self-organized exhibitions occupied an array of spaces – from small shops and a metro station to galleries and museums across the city. The event, loved by the insiders, has spontaneously grown up around the SCHMUCK exhibition, which takes place in the International Craft and Design Fair. In 2015, Current Obsession Magazine gave name to the event and started making maps and identity for Munich Jewellery Week.

In Munich, jewellery is presented in any possible way: inside a backpack with a display window, on the bodies of attendees or inside a van. Exhibition van “Schmuck on Wheels” parks at every key opening, making it almost impossible not to see its show. Munich is a chance for makers to get many eyes looking at their work. Jewellery is everywhere, it can be overwhelming. Funnily enough, locals have no idea that their city has been taken over by jewellery enthusiasts and that it’s been happening for the past 66 years.

It all started with the SCHMUCK exhibition which was founded in 1959 by Herbert Hofman and it is the earliest art jewellery exhibition in the world. In the first years, there were only a few independent exhibitions around it. The SCHMUCK is still the core of Munich Jewellery Week. This year more than 800 artists applied to SCHMUCK juried exhibition, but only 60 were selected. Among them was Tereza Seabra with a necklace made of leather and gold. The work is called Oruborus and it resembles a green snake.

In addition to SCHMUCK, the Messe Hall hosted booths from the most prominent jewellery galleries worldwide. Some Portuguese artists were presented. The Platina Gallery from Stockholm showcased Catarina Silva’s shelter works that comment on housing problems and homelessness in Lisbon. Silva made imaginary homes from tent material in the shapes of tuna cans, tomato tins, bananas, and oranges. The Marzee gallery from Amsterdam displayed works by Pedro Sequeira, made from wood. Sequeira also makes drawings and paintings. He had a solo show in Marzee last year.

The Art Jewellery Forum and Arnoldche publisher’s booth hosted numerous talks, including presentations by Portuguese artist and curator Patrícia Domingues together with Mònica Gaspar on curating the Madrugada exhibition for the Lisbon Jewellery Biennial. There was also a talk by Marta Costa Reis, a Portuguese artist and head of PIN (Portuguese Association of Contemporary Jewellery), entitled Complicit. Gaspar and Costa Reis also presented the catalog for the Madrugada exhibition at the Handwerk Gallery, where Tereza Seabra’s J. Collection was launched.

This year, Munich Jewellery Week featured a focus on Aotearoa (New Zealand) makers with New Zealand’s beloved artist Warwick Freeman solo show Hook, Hand, Heart, Star at the design museum Pinakothek Moderne. At each Munich Jewellery Week, a single renowned jewellery artist is given a solo show with the complete work of their lifetime in the Pinakothek. It is to show the new makers on the field the works of the pioneers.

Warwick Freeman started making jewellery in 1972. His works are in recognisable shapes and symbols, created by materials found in Aotearoa. Throughout his career, Freeman has turned back to the same symbols, which are placed together so that they can form nouns and sentences. The exhibition felt as if the earth of New Zealand had been brought to Germany. The opening event began with maori songs and speeches. As is tradition in Germany, the speeches lasted for almost an hour and the wine was poured at the end. Pinakothek was packed with the jewellery world’s inhabitants, with nearly everyone there.

The openings in Munich were not limited to the Warwick Freeman and New Zealand-focused shows. Throughout the four days, several exhibitions opened each day. On Thursday, March 13th, the opening of The Praxis of Care featured a group of artists, including work by Portuguese artist Joana Albuquerque Sousa. Sousa’s sculptures, titled Imperceptible were inspired by a group of domestic workers during the Portuguese dictatorship who sought to abolish their profession. As Sousa wrote in the exhibition brochure, “the simple exercise of thinking about ending the outsourcing of cleaning forces us to rethink the structure and priorities of today’s society.”

The same night, renowned artist Helen Britton opened her solo show Evolutionary Oddities – Creatures in a Changing World at gallery Kunzt 66. Her works often depict the creatures that live in the wild and focus on the loss of wildlife. She uses precious metals, glass, stones and some collected materials.

Munich Jewellery Week showcases work from both established masters and emerging artists. The independent exhibitions have no formal quality control, anyone who can secure a space and pay the festival’s mapping fee can participate. There is no overall curation of the festival. Most of the exhibitors travel to Munich, the setups are done in a short time and with materials that are easy to find. Sometimes there are just white tables with works on them.

There is a possibility to be equally impressed and disappointed by the shows. Finding great shows from one hundred requires strong homework and navigation skills, knowledge of the field and good tips. First-timers can get easily lost. The scale of emotions is colourful in Munich and the festival also hosts talks, book presentations, pin-making workshops, pin-swap dancing parties, punk and experimental concerts by jewellery makers and gatherings in Bavarian beer halls.

The festival concludes each year with a lecture at the Pinakothek lecture hall. This year, the stage was given to artist Caroline Broadhead, whose works have been shortlisted for the LOEWE Craft Prize. The lecture was a calming ending to the pumped-up week in Munich. The next Munich Jewellery Week will take place from 4–8 of March 2026.

With the support of PIN – Portuguese Association of Contemporary Jewellery.