Daniel Kruger

Daniel Kruger’s works absorb conventional motifs and playfully warp them into an explosion of a utopia, blending rigorous originality with understated flamboyance, however, as we gaze behind its technical brilliance, there is a playfulness, a delectably guiltless world that has thrown off the rigid norms in favor of the beauty and bodies of innocent, unfettered desires, all cast into these precious materials. His multidisciplinary oeuvre spans almost half a century, with his technical skill only overshadowed by his unique sense of materiality and gestural sculptural feel. 

 

Kruger’s jewelry gives an impressionable sense that these wearable creations encompass you as a spiritual shield, with a brooch as a badge of honor that accentuates what you are most frightened to show, but gives one enough room to glow as the main character, not unlike Oliver Reed in Ken Russell’s controversial masterpiece The Devils (1971), who plays a rugged, sexy, corrupt priest in 17th-century France, beaming his lust into the cloisters and nunneries, I can only imagine Reed dripping in Kruger’s works while doling out penance to the ogling masses. 

 

Prominently, these golden morsels of imagination are not just for costume, but for nonchalance and aesthetics, such as his 2021 silver filigree pendant, shaped like a cock and balls, with a glass of perfume flowing and swishing inside it, waiting to be held and dangled, or his structural 18k gold ring from 2023 that features two cultured pearls that are woven into a basket of gold, looking down at the ring and it looks back at you, monologuing its complexities, intersecting to and fro between the precious resources.

 

 Whereas Kruger’s ceramic and enamel works take another route, he crafts onto everyday objects such as dinner plates, vases and urns that are overt in their willingness to challenge the ordinary. The set of seven enamel plates from 1995 is a vivid example of shining a light on lustful innocence. The plates are emblazoned with photos from personal ads, a time before dating apps, where hopefuls would send full body naked self-portraits along with a description of themselves and what they were looking for, showing reality and vulnerability. This is encapsulated in the titles Kruger chose, such as “a spring fancy”, “Cupid’s little darts” and “a trembling hope”. 

 

Plates are more often used for consumption than display, we slap food down onto dishes and serve it up to each other, and as we devour the food and these edible delights disappear into our rumbling bellies, the plate’s own story unfolds and “Cupid’s little darts” flaccid genitalia and bright smile emerges - does one need to clean their plate in politeness, or to find the unrequited love you have been looking for? 

 

The binge of diversity and range of materials, surfaces and textures is tangible as we parse lust, the humor of hanging testicles and an innocence of a search for love in a haze of an imagined daydream, where the mundane “normal” life is painted, sculpted and fired away to uncover an inclusive utopia.

 

Owen Paul Armour