The exhibition features jewellery, ceramics and an installation of cushions the artist embroidered with the words that were most on his mind in 2024 as he was creating them.
With extraordinary goldsmithing skill, Daniel Kruger brings traditions, cultures and personal stories to his craft, making his jewellery a form of anthropological allusion. The Bogenfels necklace, named after an area of Namibia known for its natural rock formations, encloses a stamp and sand from the location inside a small glass pendant, a sort of souvenir that makes a personal memory of his into something shared and communal. Kruger uses a similar approach for the ceramics on exhibit here: alluding to forms and productions created over centuries of manufacturing in Europe and elsewhere, his ceramics are supports for pictorial citations that refer – often ironically – to art history. A vase from the beginning of his career in 1984, has a classical shape bears archaic-looking figures that seem to allude to the famous cave art of Altamira; in Maria Callas, the artist has transferred photos of the operatic diva, myth and contemporary icon to a dining set made up of plates, trays and tureens. Kruger’s jewellery and ceramics thus go beyond a merely decorative function to become objects for contemplation that tell stories and evince historical moments.

Born in Cape Town in 1951, Kruger lives and works in Munich, Germany. His works are found in numerous museums in Europe and beyond, including: Musée des Arts Décoratif in Paris, The Fine Arts Museum of Houston, and the Stadtmuseum in Munich.