How Many Is One – Professor Deganit Stern Schocken’s Artist’s Book
We are proud to present professor Deganit Stern Schocken’s new book How Many Is One, published by Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt (Germany), and designed by graphic designer Gila Kaplan. Stern Schocken is an artist and one of the top jewelry designers in Israel and in the world; the book presents her work over the years.
The book presents documentation of Stern Schocken’s works (jewelry, objects, and installations) alongside articles by Jonathan Ventura, Meira Yagid-Haimovici, Uriel Miron, Yitzhak Carmeli, Liesbeth den Besten, Gideon Ofrat, Helen Britton, Aharon Shabtai, and Iris Fishof (who wrote the book’s introduction).
We are proud to present professor Deganit Stern Schocken’s new book How Many Is One, published by Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt (Germany), and designed by graphic designer Gila Kaplan. Stern Schocken is an artist and one of the top jewelry designers in Israel and in the world; the book presents her work over the years.
The book presents documentation of Stern Schocken’s works (jewelry, objects, and installations) alongside articles by Jonathan Ventura, Meira Yagid-Haimovici, Uriel Miron, Yitzhak Carmeli, Liesbeth den Besten, Gideon Ofrat, Helen Britton, Aharon Shabtai, and Iris Fishof (who wrote the book’s introduction).
“The questions raised are based on art and design, with an emphasis on jewelry design, and aimed at searching for varied ways in which we can express different ideas and concepts,” writes Stern Schocken in the book’s opening.
The book contains four topics. Each topic is named after one of the words from the book’s title:
How: relates to the architectural-planning aspect of works in which the jewelry’s functional elements take center stage and become the aesthetic subject.
Many: deals with the question of jewelry’s “individualism”. This section offers a broad look at the casting process of jewelry manufacture and relates to surplus and the mistakes that occur during manufacturing as a fertile and inherent part of creating the object.
Is: examines the idea of “value” in jewelry and object manufacture in terms of the significance derived from defining the jewelry’s materials, its semantic domain, and its ethnic status.
One: interrogates the socio-political context in relation to works in which the text is an integral part of the object, as is its place in local society and Israeli life.
“In my work process, ‘form’ is the result of dialogue, confrontation, tension, argument, and contradiction; reciprocal relations, the movement of opposing forces, repetition, and change. The many in one, and the one in many.”
Stern Schocken has a bachelor’s degree in industrial design and architecture from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and a master’s degree in design from Middlesex University London. Her works have been displayed at numerous solo and group exhibitions in Israel and around the world and have earned widespread praise and appreciation.
Her unique personal design language has gained international recognition and her creations can be found in galleries, museums, and private collections around the world.
In 2009, Stern Schocken founded Inyanim, a group of ten Israeli jewelers with a unique voice who do group shows together around the world. Their creations have been displayed to great acclaim in Montclair (New Jersey), Munich, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Chemnitz (Germany), Tel Aviv, and more.
Stern Schocken was listed as one of the leaders in Haaretz’s ranking of Israeli Culture’s 100 Most Influential People. The editors noted that “when we look at local goldsmithing, as well as the local craft scene, professor Deganit Stern-Schocken's widespread influence is clearly apparent. She works to have the discipline recognized as a legitimate field of design in every way...”