KNISLINGE.- Sculpture, both what it is and what it can be, is being explored as Wanås Konst kicked off summer starting May 6. Chiharu Shiota (JP/DE) and Katarina Löfström (SE), who have created new artworks both indoors and outdoors in the surrounding landscape, are presented in two solo exhibitions. In different ways, the artists combine subtle reflections and observations with mesmerizing details and large-scale formats. In a special project in the sculpture park, Poul Gernes’ (DK) Pyramide, a six meter high wooden sculpture is a special project that emphasizes his thoughts on the social role of art. In addition, starting July 20, Xavier Le Roy and Scarlet Yu invites us to participate in Still Untitled – embody your sculpture to show and share for anyone, anywhere, at anytime based on workshops at Wanås Konst.

Chiharu Shiota
We encounter kilometre of red yarn and a black winding, chaotic line in the acclaimed artist Chiharu Shiota’s art work. In the two artworks by Chiharu Shiota commissioned for Wanås Konst —Everywhere and Relationality – house forms play a central role. She has worked with the house as subject matter in several previous installations such as First House, Istanbul 2014 and in Melbourne, 2016. In the Long Barn, she presents Everywhere. The work consists of three metal frames depicting houses placed after one another. Each frame
is covered with layers of red yarn. In the sculpture park, she shows Relationality, in which the house form is attached to a human figure. It is her first work exclusively made out of metal wire. She describes her work: The red line is invisible to the naked eye, but is strongly connected to human life, and once we are able to glimpse this piece of red thread, we can observe all relationships as a whole.

With her background in Japan and her current home in Berlin, Shiota returns to the feeling of displacement, and through her art she examines memories, relationships, and belonging. Chiharu Shiota (born 1972, works in Berlin) is a performance and installation artist.In 2015, she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale and she has been exhibiting extensively around the world with solo shows at venues such as the National Museum of Art in Osaka (2008), La Maison Rouge in Paris (2011) and BlainSouthern (Berlin) (2016) and currently she exhibits at Gothenburg Art Museum and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Besides installation works, she frequently collaborates with choreographers and composers for operas, concerts and dance projects.

Katarina Löfström
Katarina Löfström sees her art works as abstract paintings of light and movement. Several works can be perceived as screens erected between us, between her experience and our perception. In the sculpture park Open Source (Cinemascope), 2018 is installed. CinemaScope is a widescreen film format that was introduced in 1953 for showing 35mm film. The panorama concept has inspired the artwork’s form, title, and dimensions. The metal structure that holds the screen is made of a metal truss, a construction found on stages and outdoor cinema. The sequin-covered screen is impacted by light and wind and makes the forest dissolve into a constantly changing image.

The overall effect of this wide-screen moving image is a redoubling of the surrounding greenery, but when we try to mirror ourselves in its parts the image splits into countless rivulets of movement, writes the curator Anders Kreuger in a text on Löfström för Wanås Konst. In the Art Gallery, the video works, A Void (2003), Finale (2006), Fugue (2016) are presented and behind a partially blocked door the installation Inklings (2018).

Katarina Löfström (born 1970, works in Stockholm) is trained at the Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm in the 1990s and, during this time, worked with director Jonas Åkerlund to create music videos for artists such as Prodigy and Madonna. Katarina Löfström has had solo exhibitions at Norrköpings Konstmuseum (2006), Malmö Konsthall (2005), and Uppsala konstmuseum (2008) among other venues. She has created several public artworks and participates in the Borås International Sculpture Biennial this summer.

Poul Gernes’ Pyramide takes place in the sculpture park
The social art pioneer Poul Gernes (1925 – 1996) is the artist behind the special project Pyramide. Wanås Konst’s focus is to realize new artworks in close dialogue with artists, but more than 50 years after Gernes made his sketch, the sculpture is being realized thanks to a donation by Klara Karolines Fond, established by Aase and Poul Gernes. The six-metre-high pyramid of wood was initially a proposal submitted to a sculpture competition in 1967 for a public artwork at Israels Plads in Copenhagen. The submission didn’t win, but in 2016 it was realized for the first time at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk outside of Copenhagen in connection with a solo exhibition of Gernes’ works. The large scale pyramid that has been constructed in the sculpture park is an adaptation of the original sketch by the artist Anders Krüger. Gernes’s sketch for the artwork show a number of people on the large-scale pyramid, which becomes
a lively meeting place. The artist described his pyramid as a place “where people would be able to hang out” and the sculpture emphasizes his beliefs about the social purpose of art. The artist has influenced many young artists today through his work with color experiments and collective and interactive art.

Poul Gernes (1925–1996) was a Danish painter, designer, and sculptor. He lived in Munka-Ljungby, Skåne for 30 years. Gernes enjoyed an early breakthrough in 1949 when
he participated in fall exhibition of Den Frie Exhibition artists’ association, which presents a yearly, juried exhibition to which artists send in anonymous entries. Poul Gernes’ artworks are characterized by geometric forms and strong colours. In spite of never receiving any formal art training, he taught himself and established the experimental Eksperimenterende Kunstskole in Copenhagen, which came to be called Eks-skolen. Several of his public decorations can be seen in Copenhagen, for example at Herlev Hospital (1968–1975) and on the façade of the Palads cinema (1989). He represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 1988. In 2007, some of his works were reproduced for documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, and his art has been shown in retrospective exhibitions at Malmö Konsthall, and Lunds konsthall (2011). In 2013, his art was exhibited along with that of Cosima von Bonin at Artipelag Konsthall in Stockholm, and a comprehensive retrospective was presented at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, in 2016.

Upcoming: Xavier Le Roy with Scarlet Yu
This summer yet another special project takes place, Still Untitled by the world renowned choreographer Xavier Le Roy with Scarlet Yu and in collaboration with the Still Untitled team: Alexandre Achour, Susanne Griem, Zeina Hanna, Alexander Rütten and Rachel Tess.

Still Untitled was developed for Skulptur Projekte Münster in 2017 and takes the form of sculptures embodied and presented by human beings to human beings. In July and August 2018, Le Roy, Yu, and the Still Untitled team continue the project at Wanås Konst, inviting visitors to engage in workshops that examine the relationship between live art and sculpture in relation to time and public space. The work unfolds through these workshops and the possible encounters of Embodied Sculpture in public spaces. Rachel Tess Associated Curator Dance describes: Through Still Untitled we continue to challenge the notion of live art in the visual arts context with the consistent and persistent presence of the Still Untitled Team. Rather than programming a series of one-off performances we invite the work of Le Roy and Yu to unfold, shift, and be shifted by the participation of visitors in and around the park. We extend the lifespan of the work indefinitely, as each visitor walks away from the sculpture park with his or her own embodied sculpture, potentially present anywhere, anytime, for anyone.

In 2016, Wanås Konst began actively making performance and dance a part of the program.