Alexander Blank
low hum long drum, Solo exhibition
September 13 – October 11, 2025
Opening reception Saturday, September 13, 1-5 pm
Click on this link to see his collections : low hum long drum
For its first fall exhibition, the gallery presents low hum long drum, an incursion into the world of the talented German artist Alexander Blank, for whom jewelry is a wearable, and therefore useful, object through which he can critique, comment, and narrate what he imagines. This exhibition brings together different collections, some inspired by pop culture, others more abstract, integrating his observations and experiences. The focus, however, will be on Bones & All, a brand-new body of work presented here for the first time.
For Alexander Blank, creating jewelry is a way of reflecting on humanity. Bones & All, his new series of brooches in pale blue Corian, depicts fingers marked by time, frozen in puzzling, almost unsettling positions. The action of the hands is subject to the brain’s commands. With their hands, humans have invented, built, and shaped their environment. But what if, today, our fingers were to rebel? Freed from control, a new story would begin.
The artist tells fables, invented stories influenced by his reflections on society and his surroundings. His works are recognized for their excellence craftsmanship, while the themes he explores evolve with each collection.
Began in 2007, Smiley—brooches in dented steel, yet with eyes and smiles as lively as ever—questions the origin of this symbol and its current, overused yet constantly renewed presence. Created in 2015, Jimmy, a series of brooches carved from high-density foam and representing portraits, explores the identity we build for ourselves or that is ascribed to us.
Moving away from the narrative approach of his earlier collections, Alexander began taking countless photographs, without a specific purpose. From this accumulation of images, a questioning both enthusiastic and uncertain emerged. This led, in 2022, to En Vague 2, a series of amorphous brooches in which the images do not show the focal subject but the blur in the background. A new interpretation of both the object and the image arises. The brooches of the series En Vague 3, carved from Corian in another color, resemble fragments, suggesting absence or perhaps a new vocabulary.
Born in 1975 in Büdingen (DE), Alexander Blank was initially drawn to photography but became an apprentice to a goldsmith, a neighbor of the photographer with whom he had planned to study. After two years of professional training in Hanau and Hanover, he enrolled at the Design Academy in Hanau, where he discovered contemporary jewelry. From 2004 to 2010, he pursued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under the guidance of Otto Künzli. Selected on numerous occasions for the prestigious Schmuck exhibition in Munich, he received the Herbert Hoffmann Prize in 2012. Many of his works are part of private and public collections, including the Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), the National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh), the CODA Museum (Apeldoorn, NL), the Kestner Museum (Hanover, DE), and the Hiko Mizuno Collection (JP). In 2024, the Deutschen Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau and, in 2025, the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim dedicated retrospective exhibitions to his work.
The exhibition continues until October 11, 2025.
Contact : Noel Guyomarc’h
514 840-9362
