We regard jewellery as artistic medium

Olga Zobel Biró opened Galerie Biró not far from the city’s large art museums in Munich Schwabing in 1992. At the beginning, the gallery specialised only in plastic jewellery design. The gallery’s strict concept saw its aim as presenting the aesthetic qualities of this material, which has made such an impact on this last century. “Plastic remains impregnated throughout with this wonder: it is less a thing than the trace of a movement” wrote the French philosopher Roland Barthes (Roland Barthes, Mythologies). To her great joy, Olga Zobel discovered the Dutch artists Gijs Bakker und Paul Derrez, as well as Peter Chang from Glasgow, Thomas Gentille from New York and Pavel Opocensky from Prague, to name just a few. They all made extraordinary jewellery from plastics. At the beginning of the 1990s, Galerie Biró published its first catalogue Kunststoff Schmuck Kunst.

After this initial pioneering work, the gallery broadened its concept. With time, it became clear that jewellers worked with all kinds of materials. Nevertheless, some artists, such as Peter Chang and Svenja John, have stayed true to plastics.