The art of Diamond, the most precious and expensive material in the world, is currently on exhibition at the “Amazon Art Gallery” in the heart of Mayfair London.
The collection features world famous contemporary artists who have used Diamond in their work to create a series of stimulating art pieces with a modern twist. This exhibition seeks to raise awareness of Diamond’s spiritual and aesthetic qualities, as well as its practical applications.
Titled “DIAMOND ART”, the exhibition runs from the 4th – 21st September, 2007 and consists of a collection of works by renowned international artists such as Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Klimt and Caravaggio amongst others.
The exhibition is intended to be the world’s first of its kind and will include a collection of fine art inspired by diamonds, along with the use of diamonds in creating new types of art. The exhibition will also present a unique collection of “Diamond Art,” one-of-a-kind pieces that will include jewelry, sculptures, clocks and watches, and other miscellaneous items.
The “Diamond Art” exhibition space will showcase a variety of art forms, including painting, drawing and sculpture. Some notable artists whose work will be displayed include: Janine Antoni (Eyeball Diamond), Chuck Close (Diamond Landscape), and Piotr Mieczkowski (Asteroid). Additionally, the “Diamond Art” gallery will host an installation by artist Nam June Paik, as well as an original Rubik’s Cube sculpture, created by Albert Hsu.
Other artists from all over the world will be participating in the exhibit as well. These artists have been chosen for their mastery in a variety of mediums ranging from stone cutting and carving to painting on glass or acrylic canvases. In some cases, the artist uses diamond dust or fragments in his work; in others he incorporates it into the piece.
Artists participating in the show include: Fernando Ab
Two years after the exhibition, the Amazon Diamond Department was officially established and has been on the rise ever since.
Amazon Diamond Art is a collection of artworks made with diamond dust by over 200 artists from more than 30 countries. This exhibition is organized by Gem Couture, with support from De Beers and Forevermark.
Artists use diamond dust to create works of art that range from traditional paintings and sculptures to modern expressions of art including photography, performance art and installations.
Metal, glass, plastic and fabric were among the materials used in these creations, which will be on display at the V&A from July 14 to October 3.
The exhibition displayed artworks made of colored diamonds and other gems, along with a series of unusual diamond creations by local designers. The show also featured LED installations as well as a jewelry design contest, which included winners from China, Japan, the United States and Russia.
“The work offers no apology for its use of diamonds,” Deily said. “We are simply celebrating the material.”
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“I don’t think that diamonds are a frivolous material,” he said, “and I’m not interested in working with frivolous materials. Diamonds have value, and that’s something I wanted to highlight, but they also have all these qualities that we don’t often consider–things like toughness and luster–that make them suitable for sculpture.”
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“I’m interested in how things are made,” he added. “And I’m interested in sourcing materials locally and thinking about our impact on the environment. I’m also interested in how we can use these materials together with new technologies to make totally different kinds of objects.”
The title of this exhibition is a little misleading. It suggests that the works of art on display are made of diamonds. That’s not true. Diamonds are almost always used only as an accent in these pieces, and some of them aren’t even made of diamonds at all.
The name is meant instead to suggest the way that the pieces reflect the way we think about diamonds. They are abstractions, more like arrangements of light than they are like anything in nature, and sometimes it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at until you move around and look from different angles.
This is appropriate because diamonds themselves have both these properties. Their most famous property is their hardness: no known substance scratches a diamond. But their other most famous property is their fragility: every diamond eventually gets shattered by something it can’t scratch, usually another diamond hitting it hard enough to knock off a piece.
Those two properties are related in a way that’s relevant to art: the hardness lets you see how brilliant the diamond is, but its brilliance makes it breakable. If you want your diamond art to last a long time, it can’t be too brilliant; if you want it to be brilliant, it has to be delicate.*
What is the future of diamond art?
Diamonds are extremely hard and durable, and they have long been used to make cutting tools. But they also have a number of other properties that enable their use in art. These include high dispersion (which gives them their color) and an unusual resistance to heat.
Diamond has been used in jewelry for thousands of years, but it is increasingly being used for art objects in other media as well. Sculptures made from diamonds or other precious gems can be fascinating because of their contrast with the materials normally used for sculpting.
Diamonds are also one of the very few substances that can be formed into large clear crystals by nature. The largest diamond ever found weighed in at over 1,200 carats; while no such stone is likely to be found again, they could be manufactured if desired. Large artificial diamonds are now being produced by “high pressure, high temperature” techniques which enable scientists to make diamonds with a purity impossible in nature.
