Arje Griegst

Building around precious stones in wax using the ancient cire perdue technique he created rings for his first eponymous collection, Arje Griegst spends time in Paris in the mid-sixties working on twenty rings for Georg Jensen, who have noticed his talent and supplied him with a bag full of precious stones. He adopts and modifies the cire perdue technique – the ideal way to free himself from the static shackles of modernism. Moulding the wax creates a spontaneous expression and allows him to freely place the stones so they shine with maximum impact.

Subtly influenced by the sinuous, organic nerve of Parisian art nouveau and the 1960 spsychedelic movement, Griegst conjured the collection of gold rings through his own hallucinatory filter. It was a decisive moment in Arje Griegst’s visual language: equipped with his self-styled cire perdue technique, the gold writhes as if it were molten lava, frozen in the moment it spills out of a fiery volcano. This way, Griegst could conjure all the bewitching objectsfrom his imagination.

During the seventies, Arje Griegst took his sixties ‘melting’ gold theme in a groundbreaking new direction, using his own wax technique to capture gold mid-transformation. Tracing energetic, ribbed lines in 18K gold, like locks of golden hair or avant-garde Roman jewellery, he made gold bracelets and rings quiver and come alive: coiled springs clasp ruby pearls, a slithering pendant necklace threatens to melt and drop its cabochon cut blue sapphire down the wearer’s cleavage. At once organic and stylised, the Spiral series is hypnotic in its fluidity and warm glow, rebelling against Scandinavian minimalism

In 1971 Princess Margrethe handpicks Arje Griegst to make a piece of jewellery around one of her gemstones: a deep green facet-cut tourmaline. The result is the pendant Dansk Skov (Danish Forest, 1971-73), an intricate, sculptural cire perdue gold tree, which wraps its mysterious crown around the stone and reveals a stag hunting a wood nymph hiding in the foliage. A Danish interpretation of the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo, it is a fitting motif for a princess who has studied archaeology and who, like Griegst, takes a keen interest in fairy tales and nature.

Following her coronation, HM the Queen commissions a tiara. Wanting to portray a summer meadow swaying in the breeze, in 1976 Griegst dreams up a piece unlike any traditional tiara. The short-lived beauty of the poppy is frozen in time but executed with such lightness and animation that it almost vibrates. Cut moonstone is caught mid-dewdrop, a black opal beetle perches on a petal and a crystal spider stretches its legs between the delicate 21 carat gold stems, sewn on with needle and gold thread. Between the poppy leaves, diamonds and oriental pearl pistils emerge. With its amber pendants, it is a modern tribute to the Nordic heritage, harnessing an elegant renaissance spirit.

Arje Griegst’s superior craftsmanship shows in the way he seamlessly moves from gold to porcelain and not only retains his extravagantly detailed language but also gives it new life. In 1971, Royal Copenhagen invites Griegst to be part of its newly established collaborative studio with silversmiths A. Michelsen (now part of Georg Jensen), set up to experiment with porcelain and silver.

The jewellery and belt buckle collection debuts in 1975 for Royal Copenhagen’s 200-year anniversary and is Griegst’s highly personal and playful take on Greek and Roman masks, showcasing his love of fusing the grotesque and the beautiful. Each piece, from the naughty cherubs based on his children to the devilish self-portrait Egemand (The Oak Man, a present to HM the Queen of Denmark), is a work of art: modelled first in plasticine and wax, then cast in plaster from silicone moulds before emerging from the plaster mould as lively porcelain faces, glazed in painterly colours and mounted in pewter and silver. It is while working on this collection that Griegst is asked by Royal Copenhagen to do the now legendary Triton dinnerware.

Dining from plates conjured from the bottom of a mythical ocean calls for glass that evokes a similar emotion. In 1983, Griegst releases Xanadu in collaboration with Holmegaard Glass Factory: a series of hand blown glittering crystal that swirls gently as if you’re swimming underwater and looking up at the reflections on the surface. Because of the way the crystal is twisted into shape and how it varies in thickness, it becomes almost liquid and alive – the glass embodiment of the movement Griegst always pursued across all his mediums. The artisanal process eventually makes Xanadu too costly to produce and the collection can – for now – be sourced through antique dealers and auctions.

To complement a table set with Triton dinnerware and Xanadu crystal glasses Arje Griegst creates Spire (Sprout): a set of sterling silver cutlery for Georg Jensen. It is underway for 22 years and finally unveiled in 2002, rewriting the rulebook on what cutlery should look like.

As a symbol of growth, knives curl at the ends like baby ferns about to unfold while spoons and forks have bud finials. The comfortable handles wind asymmetrically like flower stalks before stretching out into utensils proper – an elegant bending of what we think characterises utensils. Currently, the collection is out of production and can be found antique and at auctions.

Arje Griegst’s bronze fountain masterpiece from 1989 is a particularly enchanting installation in the Tivoli gardens, Copenhagen. It is inspired by baroque Italian fountains and a crooked Danish tree, but seen through the Griegst looking glass those things become something else entirely.

Writhing upward from black granite shaped like giant rock crystals, Konkyliefontænen (The Conch Fountain) branches out into eight large gilded mussel shells from a twisted bronze trunk. Sculpted first in clay and then wet plaster, slices of wax were added and pulled at to create a ribbed bark effect, a technique similar to the Spiral jewellery pieces.

Looking at it, you fully sense Griegst’s idea that everything should have a function and a spiritual dimension. It is a magical fountain of life, like something King Triton would want if he walked on land. A 1996 version of the fountain sits in the Kurashiki Tivoli Park in Japan. Griegst also produced a fountain study in patinated bronze at Pietrasanta in the mid-2000s – a powerful self portrait showing Griegst as a water deity.

In Arje Griegst’s hands, candlesticks become dynamic works of art. Freely reinterpreting rococo, surrealism and art nouveau, his unceremonious take on the genres produces a series of influential pieces in the eighties that go against the decade’s cold, steely lines.

From his first 1963 cire perdue bronze candlestick that almost melts across the table to his dramatic 1984 Konkylievariation (Variation on Conch) candelabrae, which sits on a raw rock crystal mountain and sprouts a water agate egg from its gilded, twisted ribbons – opulent enough to make Louis XIV blush – they all embody the idea of metamorphosis.

When you are not an artist who favours things in moderation, there is hardly a more sacred object than the crown symbol of opulence: the chandelier. During the 2000s, Griegst completely re-imagines the chandelier with two seminal pieces, born from his fascination with cosmic wonders and crafted at the Bel Fiore bronze foundry in Pietrasanta, Italy – one being Galaxi, which hangs at Design Museum Denmark like a giant, crystallised Big Bang. Its spiral galaxy is forged in copper adorned with wavy filigree bronze loops, sparkling with crystal glass prisms made from Griegst’s Holmegaard glassware production leftovers. Seemingly lit up from within by invisibly placed halogen spots, every single piece of glass has been placed and considered individually.