Otto Künzli

Otto Künzli is master of conceptual jewellery. His work is pared back, cerebral, but often peppered with a mischievous playfulness. He is provocative, using irony to challenge aspects of modern life such as consumerism, wealth, power, vanity. His minimalist, meticulously crafted work references cultural phenomena, utilising the power of metaphor and iconography with wit and sophistication to create jewellery which both adorns and acts as a means of expression. 

 

 

An artist and pioneer, author and teacher, Otto Künzli was born in Zurich in 1948. He studied at the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, where he was director from 1991 to 2014. Otto has won numerous prizes and exhibited widely on the international stage. His work features in collections such as the Marzee Collection, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Die Neue Sammlung in Munich, Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, the Alice and Louis Koch Collection in Zurich, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and the Helen Drutt Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.