Babs Art Gallery is organizing a solo exhibition featuring a retrospective of Giorgio Facchini’s sculptural jewelry from the 1960s to the present.
Giorgio Facchini is an internationally renowned creator of sculptural jewelry. His works are now on display at Babs Art Gallery (Via Maurizio Gonzaga 2, Milan), the only gallery in Italy specializing in artistic jewelry. The solo exhibition includes a retrospective of his work from the 1960s to the present. Facchini has exhibited alongside artists such as Picasso, Fontana, Calder, and designer Ettore Sottsass. His creations were featured in Pierre Cardin’s fall/winter collections in Paris in the 1970s and have been worn by celebrities as diverse as Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Levi Montalcini, and Oprah Winfrey.
The exhibition features approximately thirty works. An unpublished preliminary drawing featured in the exhibition demonstrates the creative process and the planning phase that precedes the creation of the ornaments.
My projects arise from visions and intuitions that I capture on paper with meticulous drawings. For me, art is movement, it’s living, it’s contemplation, it’s what surrounds you, and inspiration always comes from observation. At the end of this process, it’s crucial to leave a recognizable mark: research must always strive to identify a precise stylistic signature that carries within it the seal of eternity. Jewelry, as a work of art, must be timeless.
Giorgio Facchini
The exhibition at Babs Art Gallery traces the artist’s journey up to the most recent years, represented by several unique, now unobtainable, pieces of great value. Strictly crafted in yellow gold, recently alternated with red gold, Facchini’s jewelry is designed for the female body, adorning fingers, wrists, and necks. The names are evocative, from 1985’s Spatial Movements (a yellow gold brooch with emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds) to 2019’s Mysterious Landscape (a gold ring with 32 diamonds), from Navicella (a yellow and red gold ring with tourmaline and diamond) to 2023’s Musical Cannes (a yellow and red gold pendant).
Facchini was among the first in Italy to create sculptural jewelry. In 1968, he participated in the Decorative Arts Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, winning jointly. From 1969, he began creating kinetic jewelry, and in 1973, he won the Diamanti Oggi prize at De Beers in Milan. In 1997, the Archaeological Museum of Milan dedicated a solo exhibition to him.
