Iris Eichenberg (born 1965) is a German

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

ist,

metalsmith A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware, tableware, jewelry, armor and weapons) out of various metals. Smithing is one of the oldest list of metalworking occupations, metalworking o ...

, and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

. She is head of the Metalsmithing Department at the Cranbook Academy of Art.

Early life and education

Born Göttingen, Germany, in 1965, Eichenberg graduated from

Gerrit Rietveld Academie The Gerrit Rietveld Academie, also known as Rietveld School of Art & Design and Rietveld Academy, is an art academy in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The academy was founded in 1924 and offers programs in fine arts and design. History In 1924, the I ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1994.

Career

Eichenberg taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie beginning in 1996, and became head of the

Jewelry Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a western ...

Department from 2000–2007. She has been Artist in Residence and head of the

Metalsmith A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware, tableware, jewelry, armor and weapons) out of various metals. Smithing is one of the oldest list of metalworking occupations, metalworking o ...

ing Department at

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cr ...

in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan since 2006.

Critical reception

The Cranbrook Museum of Art review of her work for her "Bend" exhibit noted it "...is renowned for its diverse collections and challenges to the definitions of craft and jewelry; the result is an unconventional retrospective of her twenty-five-year career told through a body of new work." Of Eichenberg's art Dora Apel wrote that her works "convey a searching spirit that permeates Iris Eichenberg’s work, which often meditates on making home and finding our place in the world. Related in some way to the body, her constructions produce sensorial and emotional effects that stretch conventional boundaries to explore structures of feeling".

Selected exhibits

Eichenberg's works are in permanent collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

, the Schmuck Museum Pforzheim, the Fondation National d’Art Contemporain in Paris, and the

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

. Her group exhibitions at international venues have included the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, Museum of Art and Design, Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian,

CaixaForum CaixaForum is a series of museums, galleries and exhibition centres sponsored by Catalan bank and not-for-profit La Caixa. It has the following locations: * CaixaForum Barcelona * CaixaForum Madrid * CaixaForum Lleida CaixaForum is a cultural cen ...

, Frans Hals Museum,

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts The Sainsbury Centre is an art gallery and museum located on the campus of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. The building, which contains a collection of world art, was one of the first major public buildings to be designed by th ...

, and Museum Boymans van Beuningen.

Solo exhibits

*''Perspex Hands Chatelaine'', Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007 *''Pink Years Later,'' Ornamentum Gallery, 2009 *''Strange Birds,'' Ornamentum Gallery, 2012 *''X'' series, Cranberg Art Museum, 2014 *''Bend,'' Cranberg Art Museum, 2014 *''Real'' series, Ornamentum Gallery, 2015 *''I Do Not Wish,'' Ornamentum Gallery, 2017 *''Kein Ort Nirgends ("No Place Anywhere")'' and ''Moreland,'' Simone DeSousa Gallery, 2017 *''The Domestic Plane: New Perspectives On Tabletop Art Objects,'' The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum * ''Useless Utility'',

Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in Detroit. MOCAD is housed in a building, a converted former auto dealership designed by architect Andrew Zago. The architecture of the building ...

, 2019

Selected group exhibits

* "Collect",

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the D ...

, London, 2009 *"Setting the Table", Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 2011 * "MoreLand", Simone DeSousa Gallery, 2017 * "Handheld", Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 2018

Awards

* 1994 — Gerrit Rietveld Academy Award * 1999 — Artist in Residence, EKWC, s'-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands * 1999 — Herbert Hofmann Prize, (Schmuckszene Munich) * 1999, 2001 — Residencies: European Ceramic Center in Den Bosch * 2000 — Artist Stimulation Award from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts * 2002, 2005 —Incentive Grants from the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Eichenberg, Iris 1965 births Living people Artists from Göttingen 20th-century German women artists 21st-century German artists 21st-century metalsmiths Women metalsmiths Cranbrook Academy of Art faculty German jewellery designers 21st-century German women