Without prior warning, the COVID-19 crisis broke the vicious cycle of jewellery fairs and weeks. Due to the travel restrictions many countries have adopted, flights and accommodations may not be affordable in the coming months.
Difficulties and risks will encourage artists to evaluate events based on the analysis of cost and return. Recession caused by COVID-19 will force organizers who don't satisfy artists' expectations for exposure, career opportunities, and sales to improve their services or to close down. Imagination, innovation, honesty, and action are qualities now required to stay in the game, for nothing will remain the same in 2021.
Before COVID-19, it was difficult for outsiders to enter the closed circuit of contemporary jewellery and impregnate it with their ideas.
Peer pressure and the alleged benefits of being a follower made this unchallenged community also accept poor management, poor concepts, poor work, poor exhibition design, sleazy venues, lack of press reviews, and the absence of buyers as normal. The patronizing of artists by self-proclaimed influencers—ignorant of art history, economics, communication—has turned even reputable international events into a boring case of "insiders" patting "insiders" on the back.
The two-month-long lockdown is a taste of the next two years to come.
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