Daniel Kruger, who is a professor at the University for Art and Design in Halle, Germany, is currently having an exhibition at Sienna Gallery, among many other things. For one, he has just produced a beautiful monograph published by Arnoldsche, and for another he has accompanying shows at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Leipzig, Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau, and the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch. This series of exhibitions and the book took many years of planning and are a huge accomplishment. Daniel Kruger is everywhere.
Susan Cummins: Daniel, you are having quite a moment right now, with a new book, Daniel Kruger: Between Nature and Artifice, Jewellery 1974–2014, and a series of four museum shows, plus of course this exhibition with Sienna Gallery. How long have you been planning these events and how did the plans develop?
Daniel Kruger: The planning started a long time ago because the exhibitions and book were originally scheduled for 2010. I had approached Cornelie Holzach of the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim about doing an exhibition there. She agreed, and this was a particular honor as I had already had an exhibition there in 1984 and this would be my second show at this museum. After that I asked Yvonne Joris of the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands (she died last year) if she would give the exhibition a second venue. After that I asked Yvonne Joris of the Stedelijk Museum s’-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands (she died last year) if she would give the exhibition a second venue. There too I had had solo exhibitions in the past initiated by Yvonne in the two municipal museums preceding the present Stedelijk Museum in s’Hertogenbosch: 1981 at the Dienst Beeldende Kunst, De Moriaan and 1994 at the Museum het Kruithuis “Five Stones and a Small Feint”. The project grew with the Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau to where my exhibition of 1984 in Pforzheim had followed from Pforzheim and the Grassi Museum in Leipzig that now will be the initiator of this series of exhibitions. Between one thing and another, the shows were postponed and the order of the exhibitions changed around. This gave me a lot of time and leisure to do the planning.