Hip-hop jewelry does a lot of heavy lifting in a new exhibition in Manhattan. It signifies elite membership, romantic courtship and ambition for greatness.
Of the New York museums that would create an exhibition on jewelry associated with hip-hop culture, I would not have imagined the American Museum of Natural History to be one. Yet, “Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry” did open this May in a tiny gallery of their Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. With 66 objects, it has an astute premise — that precious stones might attract more attention if regarded through the lens of hip-hop, likely the most widely proliferating music movement that the United States has ever produced.
This show might have been organized to absorb the energy around the 50th anniversary of hip-hop’s inception last year or anticipate the Hip Hop Museum’s opening in the Bronx in 2025. More cynically, some might see “Ice Cold” as an act of penance for the museum’s admitted possession and use of the remains of Indigenous and enslaved people, as the museum faces criticism about the legality and the ethics of these acquisitions. Either way, the venture feels successful. I visited the show twice, on a Thursday evening and on a Monday morning, and each time the gallery was filled with visitors.
The show is beautifully laid out. It’s installed in a small, dark, semicircular gallery, with jewelry in vitrines spotlighted against a black acetate and Plexiglas. The diamonds glint and coruscate as you move across the displays. One could linger, bedazzled and charmed by the bold inventiveness of pieces like ASAP Rocky’s EXO grenade pendant — its “pin” sets the time — displayed on two disks set inside a locket. However, the exhibition offers more, including the concealed and paradoxical implications of wearing these constellations of bling.
The curators, Vikki Tobak, author of “Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History,” Kevin “Coach K” Lee, a founder of the Quality Control music label, and Karam Gill, the director of a documentary on the subject, took the important step of historically situating hip-hop’s ostentatious display of wealth. They refer to an Asante chief in Ghana whose ceremonial dress consisted of copious amounts of gold (though the date of an image referenced turns out to be 2005, which makes the ancestral connection vague).
Shrewdly, the curators also name check each jeweler (when they are known), so they are properly recognized as collaborators and makers alongside the musical stars, such as Ghostface Killah’s eagle bracelet by Jason Arasheben — a massive 14 karat gold wrist cuff with an eagle alighting onto it. The Notorious B.I.G.’s Jesus necklace, made by Tito Caicedo of Manny’s New York, is another icon. It features the head and neck of a figure in gold whose beard, locks, clothing and crown are festooned with diamonds. In terms of the meaning they convey, these chains do a lot of heavy lifting.
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