In January 2011, Elisabetta Cipriani started corresponding with Enrico Castellani, the influential Italian artist, who as a member of the ZERO avant-garde group had focused his practice on materiality of painting, giving his monochrome surfaces a sculptural aspect. The London-based gallerist, who specializes in ‘wearable sculptures’, was determined to collaborate with one of Italy's most influential contemporary artists. 

“I started sending him regular letters and after two years, he invited me to come to his castle in Celleno. That’s how our relationship started, I would go there for lunches, we would talk, but nothing concrete ever happened. And then one day, he took two metal sheets, his hammer and a chisel and started to create what turned out to be the prototype for Superficie,” she says, recalling the creation of his limited edition of necklaces and bracelets.

“That moment, I will never forget. After such a long time, I was no longer expecting he would actually do it. I guess he came to see me as someone he could trust, someone who was really committed to having a project with him.”

Perseverance and her serious cajoling skills have been crucial to many projects Cipriani has pulled off since she first set up her gallery in 2009.

“There are some artists I’ve been writing to for 10 years,” she says, “but I’m not giving up until they tell me ‘No.’ As long as they tell me they are busy, I’ll keep on trying. You have to be very persistent. I am working with artists, and they can’t be pressured, they can’t be hurried. I think that’s why I’m so attached to these projects. For me these pieces are like children.

Having first studied art history and briefly interned at Christie’s Old Masters department, Cipriani started her career as a curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO) in Rome, before moving to London in 2005 to work for Ben Brown Fine Arts, a high-end art gallery specializing in contemporary art. “I wanted to learn the business aspect of selling art, and this was a great place to do so,” she says. At the time, Ben Brown’s wife, Louisa Guinness, had a cabinet in his gallery for selling artist jewellery and Cipriani gradually took charge of bringing this to art fairs. “I felt that if I was going to sell these pieces, I needed to learn more about them, so I started to research and educate myself, and completely fell in love with the idea,” Cipriani recalls.

Cipriani discovered a world she knew little about and quickly fell in love. Artists like Alexander Calder, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Picasso, had all created artistic jewellery, but Cipriani was more interested in working with contemporary artists and set out to become the link between their vision and her goldsmith in Rome.

For her first collaboration in 2009 she reached out to Japanese installation artist Tatsuo Miyajima, whom she knew from her days at MACRO. Miyajima created the Time Ring, a large ring with an LED display that works as a counter with changing numbers representing the endless cycle of life with the wearer able to customize the speed of the counter to reflect their own feelings about the pace at which their life is flowing.

Looking back at the last 10 years, Cipriani identifies her collaboration with Ai Weiwei as one of the most memorable. The gallerist first met him in his studio in Northern Beijing in 2013 at a time when the artist was still under heavy surveillance. “I still remember there were all these cameras from the police on the street, It was strange because I was happy to meet him, but afraid at the same time,” she recalls.

While Cipriani managed to convince him on the spot to collaborate, it would take another two years before the artist would put in her hand Rebar in Gold, a piece of handcrafted 24 karat gold formed to resemble rebar, the steel reinforcing used in construction, which he had coiled to form a bracelet (a ring version is also available).

The jewellery was a continuation of Ai’s monumental installation Straight (2008-12), which the Chinese artist created out of the 200 tonnes of mangled pieces of rebar he collected after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that had resulted in nearly 70,000 deaths. The artwork was a commentary on the substandard building methods used for regional government building projects, in particular schools.

“It is about commemoration and memory,” Ai said at the time, “Whether your memory or the one I have, that’s up to you, so you mould the piece to suit you. I used gold because it’s precious and that’s what life is. If you wear this piece in the name of memory of a life lost or your life ahead, that’s what matters. It’s all about respect for life.”

This year, Cipriani collaborated with him once again to create two new gold rings with Egyptian-looking hieroglyphics that are actually Ai’s interpretation of today’s human migration, with migrants’ stories unfolding under a mysterious half-moon.

“These rings fit perfectly within his usual practice, because his work always has a reference to the past, in this case the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but also expresses his concern about the human condition, the awareness of what it means to be trapped, and the freedom of travel,” Cipriani says.

Cipriani notes that when she started her business in 2009, it took a while to build interest, because the market was still relatively unknown. Today, Cipriani receives an enquiry about her pieces every day, and prices have soared, particularly for pieces designed or made by the most established artists.

“My clients are primarily art collectors who understand the value of the piece as an artwork. They don’t blink at the fact that there are no precious stones on a piece that costs €50,000,” she says.

To help clients start a collection and support less-established artists, Cipriani launched the EC Lab in 2018, where she invites young artists and designers to work on jewellery for the first time. “These are relatively cheaper pieces. It’s not only to help young artists get into the field of wearable art, but also for young collectors to start their collection,” she explains. Amongst the collaborations are Maria Sole Ferragamo’s architectural leather jewels made with left-over leather, and one between Flavie Audi, a French-Lebanese glass artist and jewellery designer Noor Fares mixing rock crystals and Murano glass.

This story was first published in ADORE magazine