Hendrik Hackl in his studio.
In his workshop resembling a natural history museum in Mannheim, Hendrik Hackl transforms millions of year-old fossils into jewelry pieces, wall objects and sculptures, giving them a second chance at life.
Interview by Ummuhan Kazanc
Dear Hendrik Hackl, thank you very much for accepting our interview request. I have got my bachelor degree on Archeology and Art History. We had a class called Geological Archeology and we were going to trips for surveys all around Türkiye, especially Anatolian plateau. We have found very interesting stones, fossils, obsidian pieces from ancient volcano deposits. I still keep some of them, they are as valuable as gold for me. You have similarly same history. Your art Works catches me immediately. You found your first ammonite in the hot desert sands near the town of Erfoud in the Moroccan Sahara. Can we learn your initial feelings and how did you decide to work on ammonites and fossils?
I was in the Moroccan Sahara with a very good friend of mine who is a Moroccan fossil hunter and dealer. He told me to look for “things” which are lying in the hot Sahara sand… “These things will change your life”, he told me… But I just found dark brown and black „snails“… obviously petrified… “So what”, I said to myself these snails are not eatable… Rachid explained to me what I found… “These are ammonites, fossilized shells of squids! 180 Million years old” – I was completely fascinated about the number! Later, when we cut the stones, their spirally coiled inside was very colorful, each piece different to the other! The fascination was big and became bigger after polishing the surface of the petrified life forms. At home, I started immediately to transform the fossils into jewelry pieces – my artistic life with fossils began…
Eleganz.
Where do you get your materials? Is it difficult to find these ammonites and fossils?
My materials – the fossils are found all over the world. At the moment I have a very good contact to some quarries in Madagascar. But also in Germany, especially in the Schwäbische Alb – closed to Stuttgart – we find very rare and well preserved fossils like ammonites, grenoides, crocodiles and ichtyosaurs. It is sometimes very difficult to find the fossils. They are mainly covered by sand, sediments and solid rock.
You actually trained as a dental technician. But you have joined many other courses to develop your art work. How did you develop yourself?
I am not only trained as a dental technician. Alongside my artistic work I worked as a stonemason for seven years and did some carpentry jobs in a joinery. I also do part-time work in a foundry mainly bronze casting. My education as a mason and dental technician made it possible to start my training as a fossil preparator – mainly with finds from Holzmaden/Germany. Some things happen just by trying and experimenting…
Mammutstosszahne.
Can you explain your feelings we you have new ammonite and fossil. It must be very emotional moment, you hold for example 3,5 million years old ammonite or fossil in your hands. And then could you tell us the process? How these stones become work of arts?
After 35 years of permanently working with the Millions of years it is still stunning to hold a prehistoric relict in my hands. Each find is an ancient life form, special, and original, extremely esthetic and absolutely unique. If I have an idea for an art object I have to look for the “right” fossil or the “right” meteorite specimen for months and sometimes for years… But sometimes it happens that I see a piece and I know immediately what to do with it… The finds are always in the center of my artistic works – they have the most information inside…
I think your studio is like a small natural history museum. Could you tell us atmosphere of your studio.
Even if I am used to this, being surrounded by the millions and billions of years it still amazes me that there are life forms from the jurassic age for example, which lived about 180 Millon years ago… And now I can hold it revently in my hands and create an art piece with and around it. The smell of evolution and development of life is hanging permanently in my studio. I notice it especially when people visit me and can hardly shut their mouths in astonishment…
You combine your fossils with various natural materials like olive wood, slate, petrified wood or iron. How these elements work together?
These materials have their own color and properties. They can all be found in the nature. They all are part of planet earth and history. So it is easy to bring these materials together – they have been together long time ago… Some materials since the beginning of time… Most of my working materials have a symbolic background in history, religion and culture – like olive wood for example…
How art lovers react your art Works?
Most of the art lovers come to the artwork by the esthetic. Something seems to attract their attention, they don’t realize in the first moment that it is a snapshot of the development of life that they are confronted with. Later they start asking questions about the central point of the artwork… “What is this? Is this real? How old is the find?” So answer by answer they come more and more into the primeval times, the viewer has a directly contact with the millions of years – with his own history and ancestors…
Lastly could we learn your future plans?
At the moment it is not easy to make big plans for the future. We still have the corona crises with less exhibitions, fairs and shows. Now we have a war in Europe where people shoot each other and a nuclear war is possible… I may close with a paleontolic word saying that at the end there will still be crocodiles and ferns remaining. Humanity will account for only a short period in Earth’s history… I currently see my main task as fighting my realism and pessimism. But there is a final hope: Doesn’t man have a bigger and smarter brain than an ammonite…?
