Between Nature and Artifice

Necklace, 1977. Copper, partially gilded, pebbles in silk, silver. Photo Rüdiger Flöter.

Daniel Kruger is a prominent protagonist of contemporary jewelry. The exhibition Between Nature and Artifice will be providing an overview of almost forty years of creativity, nurtured by an inexhaustible curiosity about unconventional techniques and materials for creating jewelry. There are not many artists who have taken such an autonomous and open-minded approach and repeatedly created innovative and highly individualized visual universes over the course of their careers. Having grown up in South Africa, Kruger often incorporates elements of African folk art in his jewelry, but he also likes to use all sorts of objects that he finds, or that connote historical shapes and decors. Thanks to Kruger’s unusual material combinations and his reinterpretations of traditional crafting techniques, which often involve textiles, the beholder can always admire his jewelry from new and surprising perspectives.

The traveling exhibition will also take place at Grassi Museum (11.12.2014–08.03.2015), at the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau (10.07.2015–27.09.2015) and Stedelijk Museum s’Hertogenbosch (October 2015 till January 2016).