Sigurd Bronger: Wearables

Hollow goose eggs, natural sponges, balloons featuring smileys, even his mother’s gallstone —the repertoire of things elevated to jewellery knows no bounds for Sigurd Bronger. And by means of artful hanging mechanisms, they are turned into wearable objects. The precision of their brass and gold components is reminiscent of scientific instruments, and, like these, Bronger’s objects fit perfectly into custom-made wooden cases.

The artist himself does not call his works ‘jewellery’, but ‘wearables’. The artful fixtures from which they hang elevate the objects out of their everyday meaning and enable us to view them aesthetically – and to discover often unexpected beauty in doing so.

Bronger readily uses items for his jewellery objects that we would otherwise never pick up, let alone pin on our clothing. After realizing what it actually is – a shoe sole or camel dung, for example – the initial moment of shock then dissipates convivially with a wink of an eye that is so characteristic of many of Bronger’s works.

The questions that the artist poses with his works refer to function and use, decoration, aesthetics and beauty. His works invite us to see things anew: does the beautiful really have to be useless and the practical aesthetically uninteresting? Through the witty yet subtle cosmos of this extraordinary artist, our own ‘world of things’ becomes a good deal broader.

The texts, written by Petra Hölscher, Paul Derrez, and Knut Astrup Bull, provide a well-informed introduction to this unique work, while the interview with Céline Robin gives voice to the artist, disclosing highly personal insights into his career. The combination of Ina Bauer’s distinctive, highly aesthetic design and the unique – die-cut screen-printed card – cover makes for an exceptional object, entirely in the spirit of the artist.