We all feel it; it’s the first day of spring, everything suddenly smells different, the air shimmers. We get too warm, unbutton our heavy winter coats and let ourselves be seduced by the beauty of the moment – before we step through the door of the new gallery Hello, the Roses and immerse ourselves in the works of German jewellery artist Bettina Speckner. Objects for body, table and wall.
Art historian Marie Gellert Jensen has taken the initiative to establish the gallery, motivated by a passionate desire to fill a void in the Danish art scene and (re)create a new focus on jewellery art in Denmark with an international outlook. Marie Gellert Jensen will invite and exhibit artists who work with jewellery from a conceptual, investigative and multidisciplinary approach, introducing new Danish and international artists, new approaches and exploring new ways of presenting this group of artists and their important narratives and expressions.
From exhibition to exhibition, Marie Gellert Jensen will develop an exhibition design that enters into dialogue with the artist’s universe and supports the works aesthetically.
Hello, the Roses
Marie Gellert Jensen opened the art gallery Hello, the Roses in the summer of 2024. She has 13 years of experience in the Danish/international art world, including at Galleri Nicolai Wallner and four years at the Griegst House.
Bettina Speckner
March 8 – April 12, 2025
Opening hours
Wednesday – Friday: 12.00 – 17.00
Saturday: 11.00-15.00
– and by appointment
Address
Hello, the Roses
Vester Voldgade 110
1552 Copenhagen K, Denmark
In the middle of the exhibition space, a simple ‘work table’ has been constructed for this exhibition, with a tabletop painted in one of the artist’s favourite colours, a delicate grey-green. The tabletop is mounted at a slight angle, the works are about to leave the table, they are on their way out into the world. On one wall of the room hang 5 small compositions with dreamlike motifs, scarabs wandering from the sun down over the mountains, train tracks pointing to the past and future, back and forth.
We find ourselves in Bettina Speckner’s workshop in Übersee, at the very moment when all the elements of her poetically surreal and slightly dreamlike compositions have found their right place. They are ready to go out into the world and enter into dialogue with new walls and bodies. The simple exhibition design with its understated details is well chosen, directing our focus on the works and creating a clear and fresh atmosphere. We breathe in the clean mountain air.
On the ‘work table’ are 19 pieces of jewellery, a selection of Bettina Speckner’s delicate and evocative pieces created between 2015 and 2025. These are small, wearable compositions, often with metal elements, in which Speckner has used four ancient photographic techniques – etching, engraving, photo transfer and printing – to transfer details from her own photographs.
With her camera, Speckner captures the special moments of everyday life, those that stand out, have an exotic beauty or a calm saturated atmosphere. The most important thing for Speckner is that her subjects convey a sense of timelessness, and they do, because time stands still in her frozen landscapes. We can dwell on the beauty of the moment, endlessly. The first ray of sunlight over the mountain tops, the tulip just unfolding its first leaf or dropping its last. The morning mist lifting for as long as it needs to be.
Every time my eye catches the next piece of jewellery, I am sent to a new world that seems familiar. Speckner has mastered the art of capturing and conveying the small, timeless moments. Yet I am left with a sense of conflict in Speckner’s desire to capture the timeless moment and the use of photography because it documents a moment that has passed. The same goes for the use of old photographic transfer techniques with sepia and greyscale colour attitudes. They point back in time in a similar way.
But new mysterious narratives emerge when Speckner brings these beautiful photographic metal elements into interaction with other objects. These are small objects that she has found on her walks in the local surroundings or bought while travelling around the world, stones, gems, fossils, used plastic discs and seashells. Objects that have caught her attention because they possess special qualities.
Speckner places all these little treasures on the large work table at home and over time they ‘find each other’. All the elements are juxtaposed in the peaceful compositions. It’s not about beautifying the photograph with gold and diamonds, but creating tension and dynamics between the elements with the special qualities they each represent, shape, colour, symbolism and textures. That’s what interests her.
However, the 4 pieces of jewellery in the exhibition that do not include photographic elements in the compositions remain in my mind long after I have left the exhibition. They make me reflect on time as a concept in a different way. These are really powerful works.
Out of doodle drawings, which I typically draw automatically when I’m bored, Speckner creates a pair of earrings and a necklace. They appear as enlarged sections of the hand’s rapid movements in slow motion.
We spend too much time on social media when we’re bored. Time disappears into a black hole. A pair of earrings with two almost symmetrical arrowheads created by hand by a man in the Stone Age must have taken an infinite amount of time to make, but no time at all compared to the two pieces of amber that nature has moulded over millions of years.
The coral brooch budding in plastic points in all its beauty to the fact that we have polluted our beautiful earth to a degree that threatens our own survival. There are traces of microplastics everywhere, even in our brains.
I wanted to take that jewellery out into the world and start conversations about how we can spend our time more constructively and less harmfully. The beauty of jewellery is not insignificant, beauty can save lives and create hope.
Swing by the gallery in Vester Voldgade, it’s balm for the soul.
About Bettina Speckner
Bettina Speckner (b.1962) jewellery artist, born in Offenbach, Germany, lives and works in Übersee, southeast of Munich at Chiemsee.
She began her visual arts studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1984 during a period of self-discovery and self-realisation in the artistic work process. During her studies she focussed on body identity, body/action & time/space as with artists Rebecca Horn, Marina Abramowich. After studying with Daniel Spoerri, Speckner switched to the Jewellery line. Read more about it
Professional references
Bettina Speckner works with the following 4 photographic techniques:
1: The photo-etching on zinc plates
2: The photo-enamelling
3: Tintype/Ferrotype:
4: Alutypes
Further Reading..
Theme: Scenes of crafts
The arts and craft industry is calling for an art centre dedicated to contemporary crafts and design. With this theme, Formkraft focuses on craft exhibition spaces and curators. What is the importance of small and large venues? Who curates craft artist and design exhibitions? How do the craft artists themselves get out of the limelight?
