Danni Schwaag - "geronnen"

18.10.2024 – 10.01.2025, Villa Bengel

Bremen-based jewellery artist Danni Schwaag is showing works that were developed in August and September 2024 during her artist-in-residence stay at the Jakob Bengel Foundation and Trier University of Applied Sciences in Idar-Oberstein, in conversation with some earlier works. The title says it all: Schwaag is enthusiastic about the material galalith, a precursor of today's plastics, which is made from the milk protein casein. Particularly during the Art Deco and Bauhaus periods, the approximately 100-year-old material was also used in the Jakob Bengel company to make jewellery and buttons, as numerous exhibits in the industrial monument show. Schwaag takes an unbiased and experimental approach to the material. She combines galalith with enamel, mother-of-pearl, wood or acrylic paint, creating collage-like compositions that can be abstract or figurative. She saws and grinds the colourful plates, tubes and rods, deforming and bending them. For Danni Schwaag, this ‘constant playful process’ is one of the most important steps in her work. Schwaag finds inspiration in moments, conversations, phrases and images that she encounters in Idar-Oberstein. ‘Sometimes it's things that I associate with the material galalith, products made from milk. Utensils that surround me: cheese, hooks, hangers, (cheese) knives, curtains, and Tony has the best ice cream ...’, as she describes. Schwaag's often humorous works show an exceptional lightness and playfulness, an absolute highlight this autumn and winter.