HOLTE.- In a major solo exhibition Danish artist Malene Landgreen occupies the architecture and gardens of Gl. Holtegaard. With Goodness Gracious! Landgreen creates a sensory counterpoint to the aristocratic, baroque surroundings of the country house with new works providing visitors with fresh vistas, a sculpturally decked long table, monumental pillars of plates, and painting en suite.

For her exhibition at Gl. Holtegaard, Danish artist Malene Landgreen Malene (b. 1962) has created a series of brand-new works for the galleries and historical baroque gardens. Landgreen is one of Denmark’s most experienced artists in creating large-format art commissions in private and public space alike. Focusing on an expanded concept of painting – on architecture, colour, form, line and abstract compositions – her works are inspired by the concrete art of the 1950s and 1960s created by Danish artists like Paul Gadegaard, Aase Seidler Gernes and Poul Gernes. Over the years Landgreen has developed a highly precise sense of the scale and scope of large spaces. Now she occupies the entire baroque complex of Gl. Holtegaard, from the galleries inside to the 30,000 m² of landscaped baroque gardens.

Landgreen approaches the stately, baroque atmosphere of Gl. Holtegaard with a humorous eye for the aristocratic staging it represents. The exhibition Goodness Gracious! centres on the symmetrical main axis extending from the central garden room apparently into eternity. Here the artist has transformed the view with a vast painting stretched between the 265-year-old lime trees bordering the garden – a work that represents a different gaze and new view of the world, but also a look back at the baroque past. Based on the art of painting, the sculptural works in the exhibition represent a new departure for Landgreen. The result is a sculpturally decked long table running along the main axis of the complex, and a quiet manifestation with abstract interpretations of protest placards adorning the garden’s small, chubby putti and fully-grown Greek gods. Visitors are welcomed to the exhibition with pillars of stacked plates on the forecourt serving seeds and grains to passing birds. Landgreen’s sculptures look like the quirky remains of what could have been an opulent banquet in the magical garden of the past.

With her series of over-dimensioned works extending throughout the galleries of Gl. Holtegaard, Malene Landgreen intervenes in the stringent ground plan of the baroque complex. Here her painterly and partly transparent textile works en suite underline the cross axis of the complex. Her canvasses with textiles dipped in acrylic paint are over two metres high, overlapping to create a visual flow that feels as if it could go on forever.

Malene Landgreen’s work is inspired by concrete art. As an artist she is interested in the impact of colours and the way they change depending on how they are combined. The paintings and installations she has created for Goodness Gracious! open a sensory world of colour we can almost step inside, yet they remain painted surfaces, forms, colours and lines.

Malene Landgreen (b. 1962) lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen. She graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1994. In the course of her career Landgreen has completed over 75 public and private art commissions and participated in over 80 exhibitions. Her works are represented in the collections of major Danish museums and private collections, including SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, ARoS, and the New Carlsberg Foundation. She has been commissioned to create large-scale works of art for institutions such as the Danish broadcasting corporation DR, Denmark’s national hospital Rigshospitalet, and Novo Nordisk’s headquarters in Hillerød. She has also created total installations at galleries and art institutions such as Gl. Strand, Esbjerg Art Museum, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kunsthal Aarhus, Kunsthalle Baden Baden and SMK – National Gallery of Denmark.