KAREN BENNICKE
Multi X, 2019 Low-fired stoneware with stains 25 x 22 cm KB-0019
KAREN BENNICKE UNFOLDING
6 - 28 November 2019
15 Royal Arcade, 28 Old Bond Street, London, W1S 4SP +44 (0) 20 7491 1706 mail@erskinehallcoe.com www.erskinehallcoe.com
Urban Complex VII, 2016 Stoneware 68 x 63 cm KB-0008
Multi X, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware with platinum 39 x 25 cm KB-0023
Can you hear it? They are calling. The ceramic objects. They are calling to you. They want to enter into dialogue. Wordless communication via form and colour. Works of art reaching out, altering their context permanently. A wordless, powerful intervention. In the intervention lies the surprise, because they are there, the objects. Resembling something we have seen before – and then again, not. They borrow. Sample and remix, transmuting elements into new entities. We are witnessing a metamorphosis that references a familiar universe while simultaneously creating an opening to something we have never seen before. Thus, the meeting is crucial. Not just one meeting but many meetings. Meetings between these works of art and previous works, between form and colour and – ultimately – between the object and the viewer’s gaze and body. In a spatial context. Karen Bennicke’s ceramic objects are of the manmade world and have a very specific origin. Unabashedly, they borrow from a diverse range of sources. These loans become quotations that continually emerge in new contexts. Sometimes, the initial inspiration comes from a small section of a drawing. Sometimes, the source is a city plan, cityscapes, infrastructural systems, the configuration of a subway system or architectural and spatial structures. But this is merely the initial inspiration, and in the subsequent process the work itself takes over, opening new paths, new spatial structures. From the two-dimensional space of a plan drawing, the inspiration is transmuted into multi-dimensional and complex geometries. It unfolds, unfolds, folds, unfolds. And despite the challenging intervention we sense that order and structure coexist in disorder. This fascinating process demonstrates what happens when the calculated and structured meet their opposites: the surprising and unsettling. A disruption that slips in almost unseen, yet causes complete transformation. And as this happens, the piece comes into character. Steps forward as self-reliant, as a unique and actual being in the world. And that is the process that shaped the objects Bennicke presents in Unfolding. We feel the initial joy of recognition, as the objects refer to a familiar idiom. Only up to a point, however, because something stands out. And that brings us back to the element of surprise. Something has happened, the initial inspiration has been given a twist. It is at this intersection of influences that Bennicke works, and she does so very deliberately and consistently. The recognizable aspects suggest familiarity, but in fact, they point to elective affinities of a very different nature. We sense the many voices speaking through and being activated by the
objects. However, the effect is far from cacophonous. On the contrary, a unique tonality emerges, as forms, spatial structures, glaze and colours form new harmonies and counterpoints, alternating in a tight and precisely choreographed performance. This is achieved by transposing the specific source of inspiration, transforming the two-dimensional drawing or plan to new, three-dimensional form. From paper to plaster to clay. Not to mention the glazes: sumptuous colours that support the form as well as glazes that take on a life of their own, smoothing out edges and bringing out new features and qualities. It is not the first time Bennicke explores this space between the almost speculatively constructed and the sensuous and intuitive. We saw this in her exhibition Urban Complex, and Unfolding can be regarded as a further development of this work. In both cases, her objects have ties to architecture, engineering, in fact, the technical sciences overall, but they are also deeply and intrinsically rooted in the artistic, aesthetic domain and in the sensuous experience that characterizes our meeting with the arts. In this case, we are drawn into an extraordinary meeting between two approaches that are often seen as opposites; here they enter into dialogue, engaging and embracing each other and finally synthesizing on a new level – in a work of art. Now in a CLASH, as the original system is attacked by a new system of form emerging from somewhere else, intervening – and transforming. The result is not entirely alien, however, as the idiom of form contains familiar elements that are discernible in new formats, new constellations. Thus, the fierce, dramatic qualities, even the assault itself, become variations on a theme. Unique modulations moving back and forth between calm and uproar, as opposites that mutually condition one another. Bennicke is always on the lookout, searching for and finding appealing forms and spaces. Her ceramic objects draw inspiration from and grow out of the shaped world. Through the artistic process they transcend their inspiration and offer us, the viewers, a new and enriched experience.
Anne-Louise Sommer General Director, Design Museum Denmark Copenhagen, 2019
Multi X, Clash IV, wall piece, 2019 Low fire stoneware with stains 67 x 34 cm KB-0024
Multi X, Clash III, 2019 Glazed stoneware 65 x 25 cm KB-0017
Surface Landscape #2, 2015 46 x 40 x 35 cm GI-0019
Multi X, Clash, 2019 Low-fired stoneware 40 x 30 cm KB-0006
Multi X, Clash, 2019 Earthenware 24 x 19 cm KB-0005
Black Star, 2018 Low-fired stoneware 41 x 35 cm KB-0010
Multi X, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware 26 x 22 cm KB-0014
Multi X, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware 20 x 28 cm KB-0003
Stone Lattice #7, 2016 8.5 x 11.5 x 7 cm (including base) GI-0017
Stone Lattice #2, 2016 13.1 x 24.2 x 14.7 cm (including base) GI-0014
Two Part Wall Piece, 2018 Terracotta 30 x 26 cm & 43 x 30 cm KB-0009
Green Complexity, 2014 Low-fired stoneware 54 x 95 cm KB-0007
Konstruction, 2018 Stoneware 47 x 31 cm KB-0011
Multi X, 2019 Low-fired stoneware 28 x 23 cm KB-0022
Multi X, 2018 Terracotta 25 x 24 cm KB-0002
Multi X, The Animal, 2018 Glazed low-fired stoneware 24 x 28 cm KB-0021
Multi X, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware 26 x 22 cm KB-0014
Multi X, Raw Version, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware with platinum 26 x 23 cm KB-0013
Multi X, Raw Version, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware 26 x 23 cm KB-0012
Multi X, 2019 Stoneware 15 x 28 cm KB-0004
Multi X, 2018 Terracotta 17 x 29 cm KB-0001
Station, 2018 Terracotta 48 x 50 cm KB-0018
Multi X, Fly Me To The Moon, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware 24 x 28 cm KB-0016
Multi X, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware with platinum 26 x 22 cm KB-0015
Karen Bennicke (b. 1943) An acclaimed Danish artist who creates sensorial and complex geometric sculptures by looking at landscapes and urban design, Bennicke rejects the traditional methods of making wheel-thrown ceramics in favour of a process of using moulds and hand-building with slabs of clay. She describes her work as “constructions, reminiscent of architecture, that constitute a kind of form-bearing membranes between the exterior and the interior.” Bennicke is one of Denmark’s most boundary-defying artists, having been influenced by Italian futurism, Suprematism and the Bauhaus from an early stage of her career. Today, her work is recognised by many awards, celebrated in a recently published monograph and held by an impressive breadth of international public collections.
Selected Solo Exhibitions 2019 2018 2016 2010 2008 2005 2003 2001 1999 1998 1995 1994 1991 1988
Karen Bennicke - UNFOLDING, Erskine, Hall & Coe, London, UK Visions Spatiales, Maison du Danemark, Paris, France Urban Complex, Banja Rathnov Galleri & Kunsthandel, Copenhagen, Denmark Diamonds are…, Ann Linnemann Gallery, Contemporary Ceramic Art, Copenhagen, Denmark 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Nastved Museum Boderne, Nastved, Denmark Karen Bennicke. Action – Architectones, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, USA Clara Scremini Gallery, Paris, France Form i Form (Form within Form), Galleri Norby, Copenhagen, Denmark Status – Retrospektiv, CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark, Middelfart, Denmark Galleri Bjornen, Stockholm, Sweden Persona, Udstillingssted for Ny Keramik, Copenhagen, Denmark Thema, Nastved Galleri Norby, Copenhagen, Denmark Retrospective, Ceramic Works 1957–95, Nastved Museum Boderne, Nastved, Denmark Ribe Art Museum, Ribe, Denmark Galleri S.C.A.G., Copenhagen, Denmark Galleri Umbra, Lund, Sweden
Public Collections Brandts, Odense, Denmark CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark, Middelfart, Denmark Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen, Denmark Grassi Museum of Applied Art, Leipzig, Germany Höganäs Museum, Höganäs, Sweden Keramikmuseum Westerwald, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany Keramion, Frechen, Germany Københavns Billedkunstudvalg, Copenhagen, Denmark KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Køge, Denmark Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany Museum of Applied Art, Riga, Latvia Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan Næstved Museum Boderne, Næstved, Denmark Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden The New Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway Public Art Agency Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schleswig, Germany Trapholt Museum of Modern Art and Design, Kolding, Denmark Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
The exhibition is fully illustrated online at https://www.erskinehallcoe.com/exhibitions/karen-bennicke-2019/ Design by Erskine, Hall & Coe. Printed by Witherbys Lithoflow Printing. Photography by Stuart Burford. Copyright Erskine, Hall & Coe Ltd.
Multi X, 2019 Glazed low-fired stoneware 25 x 22 cm KB-0020