10 Years of ASTONISH

We are delighted to invite you to the opening of the exhibition ‘10 Years of ASTONISH’ as part of the ‘Idar-Oberstein adorned’ exhibition programme.

For 10 years, ASTONISH has served as a platform for exchange and creativity in art jewellery. Founded by students at the Campus of Gemstones and Jewellery in Idar-Oberstein, ASTONISH has gained international recognition through a multitude of exhibitions at home and abroad, with a changing line-up from 2016 and, since 2017, as a collective comprising exclusively female artists. Since 2019, the group has agreed on a new theme each year, around which it develops a series of works and an exhibition concept. In this way, ASTONISH continually reinvents itself. To mark its 10th anniversary, ASTONISH is presenting a retrospective of the collective’s work at Villa Bengel.

The opening will take place on Thursday, 29th October 2026, at 6:30 pm at Villa Bengel and via livestream on the Jakob Bengel Foundation’s Instagram channel, with greetings from Peter Wenzel, an introduction by Prof. Theo Smeets, and the artists in attendance.