CoBrA GALLERY is proud to announce the exclusive representation of Danish artist Marianne Hesselbjerg in Greater China. We are pleased to present Hesselbjerg's first exhibition in the Greater China region at the inaugural show in CoBrA GALLERY 's new space.
Marianne Hesselbjerg was born in Denmark in 1949 and studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1979-1986. Since the 1990s she has been a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, the Danish Art Foundation and other organisations, and her works are in the collections of the Danish National Gallery, the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, the Hygum Museum of Fine Arts, the Copenhagen City Hall, the New Carlsberg Foundation and other institutions.
Hesselbjerg has been a member of the Danish art scene since the 1980s, and has produced a large number of works in museums, galleries and public spaces. As one of the most important contemporary Danish artists, Hesselbjerg has a unique understanding of installation art, and the dissolution of boundaries and definitions is an essential feature of her work. She is able to reveal basic sculptural principles through her work, while at the same time connecting them to common layers of human meaning.
Hesselbjerg's installations are based on space and draw inspiration from it in terms of form and material. The works 'grow' out of the walls, have no base or are placed directly on the floor and reflect the spatial environment through materials such as aluminium and water. Thus, in her work, space is as important to the work as the work is to the space.
Hesselbjerg creates sculptures and installations using a vast array of different materials including, but not limited to, soil, plaster of Paris, ceramics, gold, silver, aluminium, bronze, steel, wire, rubber, plastic, glass, wood, wool and more. These materials serve to bring different tactile sensations to the artworks and allow the works to interact with the spaces in which they are situated. The openness of these works to materials and specific spaces, as well as their coupling of the physical and the spiritual, helps to connect them to earlier art movements such as minimalism, surrealism, poverty art and land art, which they echoed in a variety of different ways and used as a jumping off point for their development.
Hesselbjerg usually uses her works to explore themes of form and content, materiality and structure. Somewhere between large-scale narratives and space, minimalism, and with few physical traces of the creative process, these works in a variety of materials culminate in cool, minimalist images. Despite the extreme simplicity of their presentation, the titles of Hesselbjerg's works always contain deep insights and multiple layers of meaning.
She is open to the range of meanings of installation art and introduces the use of specific natural environments into this art form, with its not inconsiderable minimalist expression: Hesselbjerg once incorporated rainwater directly into her work in 1966, without any artistic transformation, but rather through the strangeness of the plant to ensure the readability of her work. These works challenge the viewer's movements by both conquering the space and merging with the space in which they are created.
"Heaven" and "earth" are a recurring theme in Hesselbjerg's work. The concept of "heaven" and "earth" is the beginning of one's understanding of oneself and the primordial starting point of the material world, which can generate infinite perceptions in one's spirit. Hesselbjerg expresses this concept through the use of natural environments such as meadows, farmland, water and earth pits.
Hesselbjerg has created a number of public art installations such as the "Vestled" project in open-air environments according to different natural environments, in which the artist has accomplished a large-scale expression through seemingly small parts. She does not point to the work itself, but to everything around it, connecting it to the vast landscape of the sea, dunes, fjords, etc., and completing the construction of the installation concept in a macroscopic scenario.
In addition, Hesselbjerg's sculptures are serious explorations of ancient texts and knowledge of reality, and she conveys an enigmatic uninterpretability through bronze sculptures deprived of complete interpretation. These sculptures touch on a series of questions that are fundamentally related to the way we deal with historical remains: how to interpret the legacy that history has left behind? What can be learnt from archaeological discoveries whose cultural context cannot be reconstructed, or can only be vaguely reconstructed? To what extent will the perception of ancient artefacts be influenced by the mindset of the present age?
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Aluminium, The Factory of Art and Design, Copenhagen
2016 Aalborg Universitet, Copenhagen
2010 Vejrlig, Galleri North, Copenhagen
2009 Kulturkonflikt, The Factory of Art and Design, Copenhagen
2006 Islands, Ringsted Galleriet, Ringsted
2003 CCA Andratx, Mallorca
2002 Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen
1999 Stalke Galleri, Copenhagen
1998 Overgaden, Copenhagen
1998 Pain, Galleri North, Copenhagen
1994 Albertslund Townhall, Albertslund
1990 Ringsted Galleriet, Ringsted
1986 Galleri Marius, Copenhagen
1985 Tranen, Gentofte
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (Selected)
2020 The Anne Marie Carl Nielsen and Carl Nielsen's Honorary Prize exhibitions, Den Frie, Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2020 Enter Art Fair, JIR SANDEL, Copenhagen
2020 Hjemme hos Jylland, Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, SAK, Svendborg
2019 Plastic, Atelier Prag 61, Copenhagen
2019 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Fregatten Jylland, Ebeltoft
2019 Lampens Ånd, Galleri SPECTA, Copenhagen
2018 SommerSkulpturSøby, Søby
2018 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Heltborg Museum, Hurup Thy
2018 Store spejl på væggen der, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg
2017 I wish I could do what you do, Koldinggade 12, Copenhagen
2017 Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2017 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Kunstwerk Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf
2016 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, SAK, Svendborg
2016 Skulpturlandsby Selde, Selde
2015 SEX, Dansk standard poesi, Vejen Art Museum, Vejen
2014 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Johannes Larsen Museum, Kerteminde
2014 Sammenslutningens apologi, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus
2013 TJENER, Hotel Kong Arthur, Copenhagen
2013 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, JANUS Vestjyllands Kunstmuseum, Tistrup
2013 The Nordic House, Reykjavik
2013 Outstanding Metal, Frederiksværk
2011 Rohde Contemporary, Copenhagen
2011 Guest at Transit, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2011 Double Eye, TTC Gallery, Copenhagen
2011 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus
2011 LOVE, Rohde Contemporary, Copenhagen
2011 Transporteret langt ud i skoven, Frederiksværk
2011 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Frederikshavn Kunstmuseum, Frederikshavn
2011 Metropol, Interim, The Round Tower, Copenhagen
2011 Tilløb til rum, Clausens Kunsthandel, Copenhagen
2011 Jubilee exhibition, Kunstnerhuset Classensgade, Copenhagen
2011 KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Køge
2011 A pedibus usgue ad caput, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen
2009 The Factory of Art and Design, Copenhagen
2009 The Factory of Art and Design visits Illum, Copenhagen
2008 Kunstnersammenslutningen Jylland, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus
2008 Art of the Abyss, Kunst I Slusen ART HVIDE SANDE, Hvide Sande
2008 Vestled, 5th Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize, Barcelona
2008 Space, place, body, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus
2008 Galleri Emmaus, Ringsted
2006 Guest at Transit, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
2005 Ode to H.C. Andersen, Copenhagen
2005 Interim, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2004 Grønningen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
2003 Interim, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2003 Guest at Transit, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
2001 16, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2000 Kvit akse, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen
2000 Kvit akse, Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, Arendal
1999 That, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1998 Guest at Den Frie Udstilling, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1997 A museum for Copenhagen, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1997 Stalke Galleri, Copenhagen
1996 Guest at Den Frie Udstilling, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1996 Jacta est Alia, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus
1994 Guest at Decembristerne, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1993 The Fairy Tale Garden, Odense
1993 Danish Sculpture, Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense
1992 Krakamarken, Randers
1991 Jeune Peinture, Grand Palais, Paris
1991 In Between, Vejle Kunstmuseum, Vejle
1991 View, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
1990 Stalke Galleri, Copenhagen
1990 Le Génie de la Bastille, Paris
1989 Stalke Galleri, Copenhagen
1989 44 Nordic Sculptors, The Garden Society of Gothenburg, Gothenburg
1988 Guest at Ovalen, Den Frie, Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1988 Transportation images, Overgaden, Copenhagen
1988 Guest at PRO, The Riddle of the Heavens, Den Frie, Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
1987 Strejf, Nordic Sculptors, Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense
1987 Nybrot, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen
1987 3 Sculptors, Leifsgade 22, Copenhagen
1987 Skulpturens Tid, Sophienholm, Kongens Lyngby
1986 Atlantis 2, Fælledparken, Copenhagen
1986 Gallery North, Copenhagen, Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense
1985 Spring Exhibition, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
1984 Spring Exhibition, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
1984 The Artists' Autumn Exhibition (KE), Den Frie, Centre of Contemporary, Copenhagen
1984 Skulptur nu, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus
1983 Sculpture in the Park, Kalmar
COLLECTIONS
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen
Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg
Hygum Kunstmuseum, Lemvig
Copenhagen Municipality, Copenhagen
Odense Municipality, Odense
The New Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen
MEMBER OF
2017-23 The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
2000-06 Board member, The Danish Institute for Science and Art in Rome
2001-03 The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Council
1999-11 The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
1996-98 The Danish Arts Foundation's Committee for Visual Arts
1994-96 Board member, Overgaden. Department of Contemporary Art
