Torben Hardenberg

Torben Hardenberg’s jewelry is fantastical. Fantastical in the sense that it is abnormal and surreal. His work could also be described as filmic, it has sense of drama to it. It would fit right into most of Italian director Federico Fellini’s films. 

 

In Fellini’s Roma from 1972 the viewer is taken to a fashion show, though it is no normal fashion show – or at least the clientele of the show is not. The audience is the clergy and on the catwalk are shown different outfits for both nuns and monks. Progressively the designs on stage become more and more conceptual. The scene is both intense and humors.   

 

It is easy to read this scene as a critic of the church and Fellini is definitely mocking the papacy, but in a loving way. The show seen encapsulates the mystical pomp and splendor essential to the church, the mystery that keeps us fascinated.

 

Hardenberg’s jewelry is similarly a spectacle – intense, humors, and mysterious.   Insects often appear in his work. Flies, beetles, scarabs, and other winged creatures in gold and stones make up chains and ornaments. Compared to the human race these creatures have been around much longer time, millions and millions of years longer. Nonetheless is the length of the individual insect’s life much shorter than man’s. Made in gold and precious stones this relationship is turned around. 

 

A scarab placed as a pendant in a chain made up of other insects is not shaped by Hardenberg himself, but by hands several thousand years ago in Egypt. In the mythology of the ancient Egyptian civilization the scarab was connected with the god of Khepri, who rolled the sun across the sky each day, just like scarabs can be seen to roll balls of dung in the desert. The scarab thus represents the cycle of the day, which again is part of the lager cycle of life. Different rhythms all expressed in one little animal. 

 

In other works, Hardenberg has incorporated different kinds of found objects. In one chain is a piece of South American pottery in the shape of a small face and in another three miniature enamel landscape paintings. The found objects are strange to put into jewelry, they strike a different beat. Hardenberg is a collector as well as a creator, or collecting is part of his creating. 

 

The chain that frames the three small landscapes paintings is twiggy. Its seems it has created itself. The hours of craftmanship that have gone into making it are gone. Other works also have an organic look. They are artificial and natural. 

 

The majority of Fellini’s Roma was shot in a studio. The streets we see are not the streets of Rome but sets build to look like it. This only makes Rome look more like Rome. The film is a mashup, a film about a film within another film. Time has collapsed together with the difference between desire and repulsion. It is a comedy or even parody of a film, but also a documentary more than a feature film. Hardenberg’s jewelry has that same felling.  

 Philip Pihl