MAD About Jewelry Returns, Spotlighting Gold, Upcycling and Unisex Designs
Forty-five jewelers from 20 countries arrive at MAD with gold, recycled metals, paper and hanji, testing how far luxury can stretch beyond conventional mining.
The Museum of Arts and Design has turned MAD About Jewelry into a sharper barometer of where contemporary gold jewelry is headed: toward upcycling, alternative fabrication and a more explicit embrace of unisex design. The 26th edition, which runs May 5 through May 9 at 2 Columbus Circle in Manhattan, gathers 45 artists from 20 countries, a slimmer but more tightly edited field than the 50 artists from 23 countries shown in 2025.
That scale matters because Bryna Pomp, MAD’s director and curator for the showcase, reviewed nearly 1,000 artists to assemble this year’s roster. The result reads less like a polite salon than a survey of how jewelry is expanding its material vocabulary. MAD says the exhibition spans necklaces, earrings, brooches, rings and bracelets, with traditional metals presented alongside glass, paper, textiles and reclaimed objects. For a gold-focused audience, the signal is clear: precious metal remains central, but it is now sharing the stage with work that questions what counts as value, permanence and finish.
The roster includes makers whose practices stretch far beyond familiar goldsmithing. Ana Norman of the USA hand-sculpts jewelry from polymer clay. Fatma Mostafa of Egypt integrates traditional embroidery with metal. Raluca Buzura of Spain works with porcelain. Sabrina Formica of Italy uses recycled metals including brass, bronze and silver. Eunhee Cho of Korea brings together hanji paper and the historic jiseung technique. Srečko Molk, another participant, uses natural gold washed from Slovenia’s Drava River, a reminder that even the most classic material can be reframed through place and process rather than sheer karat weight.
MAD is also leaning into the commercial side of the fair with an Opening Benefit Preview on Tuesday, May 5, complete with cocktails, first-look shopping and a buffet dinner at Robert, the museum’s top-floor restaurant. A Thursday luncheon and panel hosted by chair emerita Barbara Tober will bring together Lynn Yaeger, Judy Geib and senior curator Barbara Paris Gifford, adding critical and collecting context to a market that has always sat between art object and wearable purchase.
The museum says MAD About Jewelry is one of the most influential showcases of contemporary artist-made jewelry in the United States, and it has a strong institutional claim to back that up. MAD says it is the only American museum with a gallery dedicated both to temporary jewelry exhibitions and to its own collection of contemporary and modern studio and art jewelry. Proceeds support participating artists as well as the museum’s operations and educational programs. In a category often sold on heritage alone, MAD’s curatorial bet is that the next growth pockets are already visible in the studio: in recycled metals, in hybrid materials, and in designs that no longer assume the wearer is female.
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