Quick Facts
Biography
Julia Muggenburg is a German artist and jeweller based in London.
Muggenburg's work has been reviewed by several media publications. She has been featured in Financial Times, The Telegraph, Interview Magazine, Fad Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue US, Vogue UK, Vogue China and Vogue Italia and Nowness. Vivienne Becker reviewing her jewellery for the Financial Times magazine called it “empowering primeval-modern ornaments for today’s cool, intellectual, urban warrior.”
Biography and work
Muggenburg was born in 1970 in Mettmann, Germany and grew up between Wuppertal and Düsseldorf. Visiting and staying in London often, Muggenburg finally settled in the UK in 1991 for good. After attending the Christie’s post graduate course ‘Ancient and Medieval Arts’, Muggenburg took a course in Advanced Diploma Painting at Central Saint Martins.
In the mid 90s, she began creating jewels for her personal use. Soon she was approached by people to make custom jewellery pieces for them. In 2000, she founded Belmacz, as an umbrella to launch her jewellery.
After exhibiting her pieces for several years in Mount Street alongside artworks by London based artists, Muggenburg moved to Davies Street in 2011 and using this space as a gallery for exhibiting works by International artists.
In 2014 Muggenburg was invited by Alex Farquharson to present her vision at Nottingham Contemporary. Resulting in the exhibition Fourth Drawer Down that reflected on the intersection between art, anthropology and Britain from the past. In 2015, Muggenburg held Bare Essentials, an exhibition focusing on jewellery from the Belmacz archive through the eyes of May Cornet. WSI Magazine reviewing her jewellery wrote that "boldly contemporary, the pieces evoke a twenty-first century take on the status-affirming ceremonial adornments worn by tribal chiefs and patriarchs and all fashioned by hand in and around London." In 2016, she curated InterKontinental, an exhibition that featured the work of 17 artists from ten different countries in all forms of media.
Exhibitions
- 2016 - InterKontinental
- 2016 - The Conformist
- 2013 - Love Letter curated in collaboration with Zoe Bedeaux
- 2013 - Miss G — The Private World of Greta Garbo
- 2013 - Women in Love