From surface to space by Trine Boesen

TRINE BOESEN

FROM SURFACE TO SPACE

TRINE BOESEN FROM SURFACE TO SPACE

HYBRIDE VERDENER - TID OG RUM I TRINE BOESENS MALERI HYBRID WORLDS – TIME AND SPACE IN TRINE BOESEN’S PAINTING

AF / BY ANNE RING PETERSEN

»Psykedelisk« eller »fantasy« tænker man måske, når man første gang bliver suget ind i et af Trine Boesens malerier og slynges åndeløst rundt mellem vildtvoksende ornamentik og stærke, syrede farver i et univers, hvor alle vante skalaforhold er ophævet, og forunderlig nærkontakt opstår mellem ellers uforenelige og adskilte ting. De rammer er hun da også allerede blevet sat ind i. Det skete, dels da Holstebro Kunstmuseum i 2011 organiserede gruppeudstillingen »Psych-Out. Psykedelisk samtidskunst« og bragte Boesens malerier i selskab med syrede fantasirum af andre danske kunstnere som fx Anders Brinch, Jonas Pihl, Ida Kvetny og Christian Finne, dels da kunsthallen Brandts i 2007 arrangerede gruppeudstillingen »Girlpower & Boyhood«, hvor Boesen sammen med bl.a. Julie Nord, Kathrine Ærtebjerg, Lise Blomberg Andersen og Eske Kath blev rubriceret som en repræsentant for »det nye figurative fantasymaleri«, som arbejder med fantasy, figuration og kønsproblematikker (Kjems 2011: 6). Ser man nærmere efter, opdager man dog lidt efter lidt, at alle de figurative elementer i Boesens værker refererer til noget faktisk eksisterende, ligesom menneskefigurerne ofte har forlæg i fotografier af virkelige personer. Som Trine Boesen selv har forklaret om sin arbejdsmetode: »Min tilgang? Jeg kikker på alt det materiale, der er i den verden, hvor jeg befinder mig« (Grosenick 2006:

If words like “psychedelic” or “fantasy” come to mind, as you are sucked into one of Trine Boesen’s paintings for the very first time, hurled breathless into a flux of rampant ornamentation and powerful acidic colours, in a universe where all usual relations of scale have been eradicated, and wondrous close encounters occur between otherwise disparate and separate elements, it would not be surprising; she has been described with words such as these before. In 2011 the Holstebro Museum of Art organised the group exhibition “PsychOut. Psychedelic Contemporary Art”, bringing Boesen’s work into the company of other volatile fantasy worlds by Danish artists such as Anders Brinch, Jonas Pihl, Ida Kvetny and Christian Finne, and in 2007 Kunst hallen Brandts arranged the group exhibition “Girlpower & Boyhood”, in which Boesen, together with Danish artists Julie Nord, Kathrine Ærtebjerg, Lise Blomberg Andersen and Eske Kath, were declared representatives of a “new figurative fantasy painting”, focussed on ideas of fantasy, figuration and gender issues (Kjems 2011: 6). If you look closer, however, you might discover, bit by bit, that the figurative elements in Boesen’s work invariably refer to something that actually exists, like her human figures, often referencing photographs of real people. As Boesen herself has explained: “My approach? I look at all the material that exists in the world I’m in.” (Grosenick

34). Trods denne fundering i empirisk iagttagelse af virkeligheden kan man dog vanskeligt kalde Boesen for realist. Hendes sammensatte univers er i det hele taget svær at placere i veldefinerede stil- og genrekategorier som »psykedelisk kunst«, »fantasymaleri« og »realisme«, for der er islæt af dem alle i hendes kunst. Som en første beskrivelse af Trine Boesens malerier vil jeg derfor kalde dem for hybrider. Dermed lægger jeg afstand til tidligere identifikationer af Boesen som fantasymaler, der går skævt af den udvikling af et mere rumligt og abstrakt orienteret maleri, som kendetegner hendes værker og udstillinger fra de seneste år. »Hybrid« er en karakteristik, der kan passe på en del maleri fra de seneste tyve år. Konsulterer man en »global« oversigt over samtidsmaleriet som Vitamin P. New Perspectives in Painting, får man syn for sagn og en klar fornemmelse af, at malerier kan være hybride på mange forskellige måder (Breuvart 2002). »Hybrid« kan både henvise til formsproget, værkets indhold, den valgte udtryksform som en kombination af medier og endelig til en tværkulturel forankring af værket gennem appropriation af og henvisninger til form- og indholdselementer fra flere forskellige kulturer. I nærværende sammenhæng skal karakteristikken »hybrid« understrege, at Boesens malerier nok er malet i Danmark, men i udveksling med en international scene. I hvilken forstand Boesens malerier kan siges at være hybride, dvs. om karakteristikken dækker mere end indoptagelse af inspiration udefra og stilistisk fusion af det psykedeliske og det realistiske, vender vi tilbage til i det følgende. MELLEM LAND OG BY Trine Boesen er opvokset i Ry, uddannet på Det Jyske Kunstakademi i Aarhus i årene 1995-1997 og i årene 1997-2002 på Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi i København, hvor hun fortsat bor og arbejder, når hun ikke er ude på en af sine mange rejser for at suge indtryk og stemninger til sig. Hendes livsbane er med andre ord udspændt mellem en opvækst i et af de mest naturskønne områder i Danmark og hovedstadens hurtige puls og brogede kulturelle mangfoldighed. På denne baggrund er det ikke så mærkeligt, at

2006: 34). In spite of this underpinning of empirical observations from reality, you can hardly call Boesen a realist. Generally, her composite universe is difficult to place within well-defined style and genre categories such as ’psychedelic art’, ’fantasy painting’ or ’realism’ because there are elements of all of them in her art, so in an initial attempt to describe Boesen’s paintings, I am going to label them hybrids, hereby distancing myself from previous identifications of Boesen as a fantasy painter, as these have failed to acknowledge the development of a clear interest in a far more abstract and spatially orientated painting, which has marked her work and exhibitions in recent years. The term ‘hybrid’ is a characteristic that can apply to a great deal of painting from the last twenty years. If you consult a ’global’ outline of contemporary painting, like Vitamin P. New Perspectives in Painting, you will be able to see this for yourself, as well as getting a clear sense of the fact that paintings can be hybrids in many different ways (Breuvart 2002). ’Hybrid’ can refer both to style, content and chosen form of expression or a combination of media, and finally to the cross-cultural anchoring of a piece through the appropriation of references to elements of form and content from several different cultures. In the context of this article, the distinctive hybrid quality of Boesen’s work underlines the fact that while her work may well be painted in Denmark, it has developed within a deliberate process of exchange with an internationally orientated art scene. To what extent Boesen’s paintings can be said to be hybrids, and in which sense this characteristic may describe more than an assimilation of inspiration from outside, together with a stylistic fusion of the psychedelic and the realistic, we will return to in the following. BETWEEN COUNTRYSIDE AND CITY Trine Boesen grew up in Ry, a rural town set in east Jutland. She studied fine art at the Jutland Art Academy in Aarhus, from 1995-1997, and, from 1997-2002, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where she still lives and works today when not away on one of her many travels absorbing new atmospheres and impressions. In this way, her path has been laid out between an upbringing in one of the most outstanding areas of natural beauty in Denmark and the quick pulse and colourful

den universelle modsætning og forbindelse mellem natur og kultur altid har været et ledemotiv i Boesens malerier, hvor fx storbyens stripper kan møde fyrreskovens kronvildt, som det ses i Temptation – Mother me (2006), og hvor skyskrabere og fantastiske kæmpeblomster kan vokse om kap mod himlen som i Mind read me (2008). Dertil kommer, at mange af Boesens motiver synes at være tænkt ud fra landskabet som genremæssig og kompositorisk grundmodel, men betegnende nok realiseret som hypermoderne bylandskaber. Det er bl.a. denne særlige overblænding af landscape og cityscape, det menneskeskabte og det naturskabte, som bidrager til at gøre Boesens malerier hybride – i dette tilfælde på det motiviske og symbolske plan. Vil man nå til en dybere forståelse af Boesens kunst og den udvikling, hun har gennemgået i de seneste år, er det nyttigt at lægge nogle tværsnit gennem hendes produktion. Det følgende vil derfor først stille skarpt på hendes motiviske univers, dernæst se på, hvordan hun udfolder dette univers i henholdsvis tidens og rummets dimensioner, for til slut at kunne vende tilbage til værkernes sammensatte karakter og de spændinger, som hybriditeten afsætter. INDRE OG YDRE VIRKELIGHEDER I Trine Boesens malerier fra 2005-2006 er mennesket i adskillige tilfælde motivets centralfigur. Det gælder fx trilogien med storbytableauerne Strange Days, Strange Nights og Kids in the Mist, der gennemspiller drømmen om den store kærlighed i tre akter med de unge elskende placeret monumentalt i midten (Junge-Stevnsborg 2006: 10). Det har dog altid primært været stederne og tingene, der har optaget kunstneren, sammen med stemninger og farver. Personer og deres følelser har mest fungeret som det narrative afsæt for billedets fortælling og det formelle omdrejningspunkt, omkring hvilket resten af værkets elementer er vævet. Som en nærmest logisk konsekvens er menneskefiguren om ikke forsvundet i de senere malerier så i det mindste blevet skaleret ned til diskrete staffagefigurer, der kun lige netop kan give beskueren en forankring i billedet i form af en pladsholder i dets rum. Hvor trilogien fra 2005-

cultural diversity of the capital. It is not surprising then, that the universal contrasts and bonds between nature and culture have always been key motifs in Boesen’s paintings, where a stripper from the big city may meet a deer from the pine forest, as in Temptation – Mother me (2006), or skyscrapers and fantastic giant flowers grow side by side, as if in a race towards the sky, in Mind read me (2008). Additionally, many of Boesen’s motifs seem to be derived from the idea of landscape, both as genre and as a fundamental compositional model, but with the significant difference that they are realized as hypermodern urban landscapes. This particular crossfading of cityscape and landscape, manmade and the naturally created, contributes into making Boesen’s paintings hybrids, in this case on the level of the motif and the symbolic. If one wants to reach a deeper understanding of Boesen’s art, and the development she has undergone in recent years, it is useful to carry out an in-depth cross-section of her production. In the following I will focus firstly on Boesen’s universe of motifs and then look at how she unfolds this universe within the dimensions of time and space respectively, in order to finally return to the composite character of the work and the tension this sense of hybridity evokes. INNER AND OUTER REALITIES In many of Trine Boesen’s paintings, from 20052006, the human figure plays a central role within the overall motif. In the trilogy Strange Days, Strange Nights and Kids in the Mist, depicting an urban tableau, replaying the dream of true love in three acts, the young loving couple are placed monumentally in the middle (Junge-Stevnsborg 2006: 10). It has, however, largely been places and things, which have pre occupied the artist, together with moods and colours. People and their emotions have mostly functioned as a narrative impetus for the storyline of the image, the pictorial hinge around which the rest of the visual elements of the work have been interwoven. As an almost logical consequence, in Boesen’s later work, the human figure has, if not vanished, been scaled down into a discreet, merely ornamental motif, that only barely manages to give the spectator a sufficient anchoring,

MIND READ ME 215 Ă&#x2014; 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas

2006 har de elskende som hovedrolleindehavere, i den direkte forstand at serien handler om dem, og dermed kun tillader beskueren at deltage i billedet gennem indlevelse i personernes historie og sindstilstand, er de nyere billeder mere åbne for beskuerens egne projektioner og fortolkninger. De inviterer en til at erindre, associere og skabe betydningsmæssige sammenhænge på grundlag af ens egne subjektive indlæsninger. Parallelt med menneskefiguren er den modernistiske skyskraberarkitektur, der dominerede mange af Boesens billeder fra midten af 00’erne – såsom Settlers (2003) og Another Real World (2004) – også begyndt at indtage en mindre fremtrædende plads. Tag fx det førnævnte Mind read me. Som de fleste af Boesens lærreder er maleriet stort og måler hele 215 × 190 cm. Det er for så vidt bygget op efter landskabsmaleriets klassiske forskrifter med en forgrund, en mellemgrund og en baggrund. I modsætning til dette underlægger Boesen dog kun de figurative detaljer og ikke den samlede komposition centralperspektivets virkelighedsefterlignende rumkomposition. Trods formatet og den mægtige gule krysantemum, der skyder op i forgrunden som en vildtvoksende og utæmmelig bjørneklo, virker maleriet alligevel i kraft af sin detaljetæthed nærmest intimt. Skyskraberbyen dominerer ikke længere suverænt som i fx Adventures in Wonderland (2005). Den titter i stedet frem bag blomstens fligede blade, dværgagtiggjort af deres størrelse. I modsætning til blomsten er arkitekturen ikke farvelagt, men fremtræder som en grafisk tegning i sort-hvid, som havde den mistet sin materielle substans. Det øger til gengæld arkitekturens fleksibilitet som billede og dermed dens evne til at gå i ét med den portal af tegn og ting, som runder sig malstrømagtigt i billedets mellemgrund og danner den ramme, igennem hvilken man får et kik ud mod et kosmisk tomrum eller et uendeligt univers, der på én gang synes at afføde og opsuge alting. I portalens væv af abstrakte ornamentale og rumlige elementer genfinder man en række typiske Boesen-motiver: fra bilen og møtrikkerne, der forankrer strømmen af ting på jorden, over stiliserede ungpigeansigter til bombeforbudsskilte og en schweizerkniv,

as if in the form of a placeholder, within the scope of the painting. Where the lovers are the main character in the trilogy from 2005-2006, in the obvious sense that the work is about them, allowing the spectator to participate in the image only through empathy with the narrative and state of mind of its characters, more recent images are increasingly open to the projections and understandings of the viewer; they invite you to remember and relate, to create meaningful readings of the work based on your own subjective interpretation. This functional shift of the role of the human figure came simultaneously with a period when Boesen’s use of the modern architecture of the skyscraper, which had dominated her paintings since the mid 2000s, as in Settlers (2003) and Another Real World (2004), also began to occupy a less prominent place in her work. The painting Mind read me (2008) is a good example. Like most of Boesen’s canvasses the painting is big, measuring 215 x 190 cm. The composition is structured according to classical formula for landscape painting, with foreground, middle ground and background, but in contrast to this Boesen only applies the mimetic representation of linear perspective to the figurative details of the image, instead of to the composition as a whole. In spite of the format, and the huge yellow chrysanthemum that shoots up in the foreground like a wild and untameable giant hogweed, the painting feels almost intimate due to its density of detail. The city of skyscrapers no longer dominates, as it does in, for instance, Adventures in Wonderland (2005), instead it is only barely visible behind the laciniate leaves of the flower and dwarfed by their relative size. In contrast to the flower, the architecture has not been coloured in but appears as a graphic drawing in black and white, as if it has lost its material substance. This increases the flexibility of architectural structure as image and thereby the ability of the motif to merge seamlessly with the gateway of signs and things that circle vortex-like in the middle ground of the painting, creating the frame through which a view of a cosmic void or an endless universe seems to simultaneously generate and absorb everything. In the weave of abstract, ornamental and spatial

hvis udfoldede blade synes at angribe blomsten fra sidefløjen sekunderet af et grinende gebis. Man genfinder også svampene og de eksotiske blomster, der vokser frodigt frem fra sprækkerne mellem de urbane motiver. Som for at understrege dynamikken i billedet lader Boesen et vejnetslignende banner bølge gennem det tomme rum som et abstrakt tegn for fart og bevægelse, der dog munder ud i en genkendelig figur: en putto på afveje, slynget fra det ydre univers ind i det tætte væv af jordiske ting. Mens kvinden foroven bærer sorte solbriller og dermed synes at kikke indad i sig selv, kikker kvinden nederst i billedet nysgerrigt udad og opad. Det er gennem hendes aktive betragterfigur, at vi projiceres ind i billedets univers og selv bliver modtagere af den flod af indbyrdes forbundne informationer, der strømmer mod hende. Mind read me visualiserer således den forbundethed, som er en af udfordringerne i en globaliseret verden, hvor digitale netværk og øget trafik på tværs af kloden får mennesker, kulturer og informationer til at krydse spor i et hidtil uset omfang og i et højere tempo. At maleriets overvældende ophobning af ting og tegn, bevægelse og strømme ikke virker tung og overlæsset, men tværtom nærmest vægtløs og kompositorisk hårfint afbalanceret, skyldes Boesens særlige måde at kombinere maleri og tegning på, hvor konturerne på alle formerne i maleriet bliver tegnet omhyggeligt op med blyant på et grunderet, hvidt lærred, og flere partier får lov at forblive ufarvelagte som en stregtegning. MALERIET OG DE ANDRE MEDIER Tegningen har historisk set været et vigtigt skitseredskab for kunstnere, ikke mindst når man skulle male billeder »efter naturen«. Den natur eller virkelighed, Trine Boesen skildrer i sine billeder, er i mange tilfælde en virkelighed oplevet på anden hånd, idet den først er filtreret gennem andres billeder. Som de fleste andre kunstnere finder Boesen næring til sin egen kunst ved at studere andres: Det kan være rumskabende malere som tyske Katharina Grosse og Franz Ackermann, amerikanske feministiske kunstnere eller en frenetisk tegner som amerikanske Raymond Pettibon, eller det kan være psykedeliske billedekspe-

elements, which make up this gateway, one finds a number of typical Boesen motifs: from the car and the nuts and bolts, anchoring the gush of objects to the ground, over stylised faces of young girls to warning signs prohibiting explosives, and a Swiss army knife, which with unfolded blades seems to be attacking the flower from one side, seconded by a laughing set of false teeth. The mushrooms and exotic flowers, growing lushly out from cracks in the urban motifs, are there as well. As if to underline the dynamic of the picture, Boesen lets a banner, reminiscent of road networks, waver through the empty space like an abstract sign for speed and movement, ending, however, in a recognisable figure: a cherub gone astray, hurled from outer space into the dense weaving of worldly objects. While the woman above wears black sunglasses, and seems to be looking inward, the woman in the lowest part of the picture looks curiously outwards and upwards. It is through her active gaze we are projected into the universe of the image, becoming recipients of the flood of mutually interrelated pieces of information, which float towards her, ourselves. In this way Mind read me visualises the connectedness, which is one of the challenges of a globalized world where digital networks and increased traffic across the globe allow people, cultures and information to cross paths on a previously unprecedented level of speed and scale. The fact that this overwhelming accumulation of things and signs, movement and directions, doesn’t seem overloaded and heavy in Boesen’s work but, on the contrary, seems almost weightless, with fine compositional balance, is due to her particular method of combining painting with drawing, where the contours of all the shapes in the painting are meticulously drawn up with a pencil on a prepared white canvas, with areas allowed to remain uncoloured as in a line drawing. PAINTING AND OTHER MEDIA Drawing has been an important sketching tool for artists throughout history, not least when painting ’after nature’. The nature or reality that Trine Boesen portrays in her work is often a reality experienced second hand because it has been filtered through the images of others. As with most artists, Boesen nourishes her own work through the study of art by others. It might be other spatially

rimenter fra 1970’erne eller samplingen af forskellige billeder hos popkunstnere som Robert Rauschenberg og James Rosenquist (Junge-Stevnsborg 2006: 11). Selvom hun henter inspiration i de små ting i hverdagen, er hendes billeder ikke baseret på direkte virkelighedsobservation, sådan som realismens og naturalismens billeder er det. De bygger snarere på fund i hendes efterhånden omfattende billedarkiv med materiale fra magasiner og bøger, private fotos mv. Boesens malerier er således repræsentanter for den form for maleri, som kunstneren og kunst teoretikeren Peter Weibel har kaldt for »pittura immedia« (Weibel 2010), men som man også med en term fra medieteorien kunne kalde for remedieret maleri (Bolter og Grusin 1999). Weibel bruger termen til at beskrive, hvordan maleriet blev forvandlet, da kunstnere i det 20. århundrede begyndte at appropriere billeder og teknikker i stor stil fra mekaniske, elektroniske og digitale medier som fotografi, film, TV, video og – senere – computeren og internettet. Malerier, der baserer sig på sådanne medier, er ifølge Weibel ikke blot kendetegnet ved mediering, men også immediering: De er blevet filtreret gennem mekanisk reproducerbare billedmediers »fotografiske« og »filmiske« visualitet og afbildningsformer. Derved er deres forhold til verden dels blevet mere distanceret, andenhånds, dels mere billedmæssigt reflekteret. Resultatet er ifølge Weibel et maleri, som vægter maleriets medierede, kodede og kontekstuelle karakter. Fordi sådanne værker er malerier, kan de dog også arbejde sig ud på den anden side af medieringen og frem til en form for sanselig umiddelbarhed og nærvær midt i medieringen – dét, Weibel kalder for immediering. Kort sagt, det mediebevidste maleri transcenderer de elektroniske og digitale billedformers visualitet ved slet og ret at insistere på det maleriske som sanseligt fænomen. Det er et maleri, som både vil blæse og have mel i munden. Det holder fast på maleriets sanselighed og kolorisme, men det insisterer samtidig på, at maleriet hænger sammen med de teknisk reproducerbare billedformer, som dominerer vor tids visuelle kultur. Som »pittura immedia« er Trine Boesens malerier også

orientated painters such as Katharina Grosse and Franz Ackermann from Germany, or feminist artists or a frenetic draughtsman like Raymond Pettibon from America, or it could be experimental psychedelic images in works by the 1970s, or samplings of different images from pop-artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist (Junge-Stevnsborg 2006: 11). Although Boesen finds inspiration in small everyday things, her pictures are not based directly on observations of reality as in the mode of realism and naturalism. Instead her work is based on findings in a, by now, extensive image archive, holding amassed material from magazines and books as well as private photos etc. Boesen’s paintings have become representative of a form of painting that artist and art theorist Peter Weibel has named “pittura immedia” (Weibel 2010) and, using a term from media theory, you could also call “remediated” painting (Bolter and Grusin 1999). Weibel uses the term to describe how, in the 20th century, painting was radically transformed when artists began appropriating images and techniques from mechanical, electronic and digital media, such as photo graphy, film, TV, video and, later on, the computer and the internet, on a larger scale. Paintings based on such media become, according to Weibel, not only characterised by mediation but also by immediation. They have been filtered through modes of mechanically reproducible ’photographic’ and ’filmic’ visuality and methods of depiction, making the artist’s relationship to portraying the world more distant and second hand while at the same time becoming more attentive to the nature of its imagery. According to Weibel, the result is a painting that emphasises its own mediated, coded and contextual qualities, but because such works are paintings, they are also able to work their way out onto the other side of the mediation, moving forward towards a form of sensory immediacy and presence in the midst of mediation, precisely what Weibel calls immediation. Media conscious painting can transcend the visuality of electronic and digital images by simply insisting on the painterly as a sensory phenomenon. This is a type of painting that wants to have its cake and eat it too; holding on to the sensuality and investment of

en slags indirekte signalement af den epokale visualitet og almene billedkultur, de er rundet af; en billedkultur, hvor billeder er tilgængelige i overflod, og hvor det nærmest er umuligt ikke dagligt at blive suget ind i deres malstrøm. Den motiviske overflod i Boesens billeder sender således et signal om billeders dominans og tilgængelighed i vores kultur. Boesen konstruerer sig frem til en motivisk detaljerealisme ved at benytte en slags collageteknik, hvor motivstumper fra forskellige eksisterende billedkilder stykkes sammen til en ny virkelighed – tilmed medieret gennem yderligere en billedteknologi, overheadprojektoren, Boesens uundværlige arbejdsredskab. I modsætning til collagen, tenderer maleriet og tegningen dog mod at udjævne overgangene mellem fragmenterne, så vi næsten ikke tænker over de motiviske sammensyninger, men tværtimod oplever et Boesen-maleri som en slags totalitet, en billedverden. TINGENES INDBYRDES RELATIONER »Detaljerealisme«, »collage« og »pittura immedia« er altså termer, der kan hjælpe med til at indkredse det særegne ved Boesens kunstneriske udtryk. Hertil bør man føje »ophobninger«. Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg, kunstnerisk leder af Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, har meget passende sammenlignet Boesens myldrende storbyuniverser med en myretue, hvor alting sker og forbindes indbyrdes på mangfoldige måder: »Man lægger ikke mærke til den, før man står midt i den. Man begynder at forestille sig, at der er en hel lille verden inden i den. Sociale normer og fællesskaber, adfærdsmønstre og retsregler. En samfundsorden, der kan sammenlignes med en mental tankeproces, hvor hjernens celler kommunikerer med hinanden og skaber aktivitet, billeder og betydninger. Et mikrokosmos i makrokosmos.« (Junge-Stevnsborg 2006: 11) En ophobning altså af den store verden i maleriets lille. Som Lise Skytte Jacobsen har bemærket, er ophobningen som kunstnerisk organiseringsprincip historisk forbundet med den moderne industrialiserede verden og dens masseproduktionsformer. Ophobningen er nok mest udbredt som skulpturelt organiseringsprincip, men som Boesens malerier

colour in painting yet insisting that painting is affiliated with those technically reproduceable forms of imagery, which dominate the visual culture of our time. As ‘pittura immedia’ Boesen’s paintings also act as a kind of indirect portrayal of a common epochal cult of the visual, from which they are derived; a culture where multitudes of images accumulate and are constantly and excessively accesible, where it is almost impossible to avoid being sucked into its vortex on a daily basis. The abundance of motifs in Boesen’s paintings expose the dominance and accessibility of images in our culture. Boesen constructs her motifs with a realism of detail by using a kind of collage technique where pieces of motifs, from different existing image sources, are assembled into a new reality and further mediated through the use of yet another technology: the overhead projector, Boesen’s indispensable tool. In contrast to the collage, painting and drawing tend to even-out the seams between the collaged fragments in such a way that we hardly think about the techniques with which the motifs have been stiched together at all, but rather experience a Boesen painting as a kind of totality, a complete visual world. THE MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP OF THINGS Terms such as ’realism of details’, ’collage’ and ’pittura immedia’ are helpful in defining the particular character of Trine Boesen’s artistic expression. To these one should add the term ’accumulations’. Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg, artistic director of Den Frie Exhibition Hall, has very appropriately compared Boesen’s teaming big city universe with an anthill in which everything happens and interconnects in multifarious ways: “One doesn’t notice it until one is standing in the middle of it. You start imagining that there is a complete little world inside, with social norms and communities, patterns of behaviour and rules of law; a societal order comparable to a mental thought process in which the brain cells communicate with each other, creating activity, images and meaning; a microcosm within a macrocosm.” (Junge-Stevnsborg 2006: 11). An accumulation of the world at large into the limited world of the painting. Lise Skytte Jacobsen has noted that the organising principle of accumulation, used by artists, is historically connected to the modern industrialised world and its technologies of mass produc-

demonstrerer, kan den også fungere som billedkompositorisk princip. En ophobning er en ansamling af mange forskellige ting, men antallet er ikke afgørende i sig selv. Et fabrikslager med tusindvis af syste matisk opstillede varer udgør ikke en ophobning, men et lagersystem. Det gør en sammenstuvning af gamle møbler og ejendele på et loft til gengæld. Det er således organiseringen af tingene, deres rumlige fordeling og rumlig-arkitektoniske struktur, der definerer en ophobning. En ophobning er dermed et kvalitativt begreb, der beskriver en strukturering af tingene, der ikke udspringer af deres brugsfunktion, men snarere – som collagen – river elementerne ud af deres oprindelige sammenhænge. Ophobningen og collagen dekontekstualiserer tingene for at gøre dem til noget andet. Og Skytte Jacobsen konkluderer: »Ophobningen truer med andre ord objekternes selvberoende identitet og deres stabile betydning.« (Jacobsen 2005: 11) En ophobning skaber uvante berøringer og interaktioner mellem tingene, og det sætter deres betydning i skred, for »ophobningen [er] ikke først og fremmest afhængig af tætheden, men snarere af umiddelbart uforklarede, uoverskuelige relationer mellem elementerne« (Jacobsen 2005: 16). Relationer er, præcis hvad der styrer Boesens arbejde med maleriet. Hun overfører sine billedforlæg til transparenter, så hun ved hjælp af sin overheadprojektor kan projicere dem op på og med blyant overføre dem til lærredet, ét efter ét. Ved at ændre afstanden mellem projektor og lærred kan hun regulere motivernes størrelse. Ved at flytte på projektoren kan hun gentage et motiv, og ved at lægge flere transparenter på projektoren samtidig kan hun på skitsestadiet undersøge, hvordan et element forbinder sig med et andet til en konstellation, som så igen kan forbindes med nye konstellationer, så genstandselementerne danner flertydige og forgrenede, men ikke desto mindre bevidst styrede associationskæder. Selvom Boesen normalt har en overordnet idé om, hvordan maleriet skal være, vokser de motiviske ophobninger på den måde frem i en arbejdsproces, der på én gang er kontrolleret og åben for overraskende indfald, tilfældigt opståede koblinger og impulsive tankespring.

tion. The method is probably most widely known as an organizing principle for sculpture but, as Boesen’s paintings demonstrate, it also functions as a compositional principle for image-making. An accumulation is a collection of many different things but quantity is not important in itself; a factory warehouse, with thousands of systematically placed goods, does not amount to an accumulation but, rather, to a warehouse system, while a gathering of old furniture and belongings in a loft does. It is the organising and arrangement of the collected objects, their distribution in a given space, as well as their spatial and architectonic structures, that define an accumulation. As such an accumulation is a qualitative term describing a structuring of things, which does not arise from their function or usefulness but rather, as in a collage, tears the elements out of their original context. Accumulation and collage de-contextualise things in order to make them into something else. As Skytte Jacobsen concludes: “The accumulation threatens the independent identity and stable meaning of the objects.” (Jacobsen 2005: 11). An accumulation creates unfamiliar encounters and interactions between things and this accelerates a shift in meaning because “the accumulation [is] not essentially dependant on proximity but rather on the immediate, unexplainable and overwhelming relations between the elements.” (Jacobsen 2005: 16). Relations are precisely what guide Boesen’s work. She copies her sources of imagery onto transparencies enabling her, with the aid of her overhead projector and using a pencil, to transfer them on to the canvas one at a time. By altering the distance between projector and canvas, she is able to regulate the size of the motifs. By moving the projector, she is able to repeat a motif, and by placing several transparencies on to the projector at once she is able to investigate how one element may connect itself to another, creating a different constellation that again may connect itself with new constellations, and so on, over and over again, and in such a way that the different elements now create an ambiguous, but nevertheless consciously directed, branching out of variable chains of associa tion. Even though Boesen usually has an overall idea

GHOST I 190 Ă&#x2014; 190 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2010

Ét er motivelementerne, noget andet de temaer, som elementerne bygger op, og som danner ledetråde gennem Boesens produktion. Det tydeligste og nok vigtigste er forholdet mellem natur og kultur, men andre trænger sig på. Der er ikke langt fra ophobning til opstilling eller »stilleben«, som det kaldes i kunstterminologien. I et stilleben er alle genstandene ladet med symbolsk betydning og peger ultimativt på livets forbindelse med døden. Derfor fortolkes opstillinger ofte som et »memento mori«. I et traditionelt stilleben med fx en overdådig blomsterbuket kan man således finde enkelte visne blomster og måske en flue eller sommerfugl, der peger symbolsk på livets korthed og det jordiskes forgængelighed. Detaljerealismen på tingenes niveau giver Boesens billeder mindelser om et stillebens frosne stase – samtidig med at de paradoksalt nok er meget dynamiske. Som i 1600-tallets nederlandske Vanitas-billeder støder man konstant på små påmindelser om livets skrøbelighed – lige fra den truende schweizerkniv, bombeskiltene, det grinende gebis og de kopulerende skeletter over fluerne, sommerfuglene og de udstoppede hjortetrofæer til det tomme, mørke univers, der bryder gennem sprækkerne i civilisationens tynde hinde. Er Boesens universer spændt ud mellem liv og død, natur og kultur, mikrokosmos og makrokosmos, er de samtidig også spændt ud mellem kaos og orden. Og det på såvel det formelle kompositoriske som det indholdsmæssige plan. Tag fx Ghost I (2010) og Ghost II (2010), hvor enorme brændestabler er tårnet op langs en vej, så langt øjet rækker, og giver billedrummet en fastmuret stabilitet. Stabiliteten synes dog samtidig at blive overskygget af den urolige hob af kendte og ukendte artefakter, der fyger hen over dem som en løbsk uvejrssky. Kompositorisk fungerer brændestablerne i Ghost I og Ghost II ligesom den moderne arkitektur i lidt tidligere storbyvisioner som Cucumber Eyes (2004), Concrete River (2005) og The Mind’s Eye (2005). De udgør et midlertidigt bolværk af orden mod det eksplosive kaos, der strømmer mod beskueren som en flodbølge fra det fjerne. Det er således ingen tilfældighed, at Boesen har givet et dobbeltmaleri fra 2005 titlen Butterfly Effect 1 og Butterfly Effect 2. I kaosteorien betegner sommer-

about what a painting is going to look like, the actual accumulation of motifs evolves through an extensive work process that is both controlled and yet open to unexpected ideas, fortuitous couplings and impulsive transgressive thought. After considering Boesen’s motif elements, it is interesting to investigate some of the themes with which these elements form guiding principles that lead us through the universe of Boesen’s production. The clearest, and possibly most important of these, is the relationship between nature and culture but there are other important aspects as well. An accumulation of various items is not dissimilar to that of an arrangement or display, or still life as it is called in art terminology. In a still life the depicted objects are laden with symbolic meaning pointing ultimately towards the correlation of life and death, and as such often interpreted as a momento mori. In a traditional still life, perhaps with a lavish bouquet of flowers, one will also find a few withered flowers or perhaps a fly or butterfly symbolically pointing towards the shortness and earthly transience of life. Boesen’s application of detailed realism in her depiction of things makes her paintings reminiscent of the frozen stasis of a still life painting, while paradoxically appearing extremely dynamic at the same time. As in sixteenth century Dutch vanitas paintings, one constantly encounters small reminders of the fragility of life in Boesen’s work, from threatening switchblades to warning signs forbidding explosives, from grinning false teeth to copulating skeletons, to flies, butterflies and stuffed deer trophies, and dark empty space breaking through the cracks of the thin membrane of civilisation. As Boesen’s worlds stretch out between life and death, nature and culture, microcosmos and macrocosmos, they also unfold between chaos and order, equally applying at the level of composition, as a question of form, and influencing image content. In Ghost I (2010) and Ghost II (2010) huge stacks of wooden logs tower alongside both sides of a road, as far as the eye can see, giving the image a feeling of walled stability. At the same time this sense of permanence is being overshadowed by a frenetic cluster of disparate artefacts, sweeping above the piles of wood like a stormy

fugleeffekten det forhold, at små ændringer ét sted i et ikke-lineært system via kædereaktioner kan forårsage store ændringer i en senere fase og på et andet sted. Termen kan føres tilbage til midten af det 20. århundrede, hvor meteorologer kortlagde umiddelbart tilfældige eller kaotiske vejrfænomener som, hvis man analyserede dem over tid, dannede et dobbelt grafisk spiralmønster med mindelser om sommerfuglevinger. Siden da er termen ofte blevet brugt som en metafor for, hvordan tilsyneladende kaotiske processer kan være styret af en form for egen organisering, og hvordan små tildragelser kan få store konsekvenser, selvom vi mennesker ikke umiddelbart kan gennemskue den logik, der forbinder dem. For Trine Boesen synes sommerfugleeffekten nærmest at være blevet et billede på, hvordan hendes kunst bliver til. Ligesom en sommerfugls slag med vingerne i kaosteoriens teoretiske eksempel kan skabe små ændringer i atmosfæren, der kan få indflydelse på retningen og karakteren af en tornado uger senere et andet sted, således kan ethvert element, som Boesen føjer til sine billeder, påvirke helheden og forårsage uforudsigelige betydningsmæssige forandringer. Det underliggende system – årsagerne til de valg, Boesen træffer – har vi som beskuere ingen indsigt i. Vi er blot vidner til den akkumulerede tornado, som de fleste af hendes billeder i grunden er. RUM OG ARKITEKTUR Tornadoeffekten overskygger dog ikke, at Trine Boesens kompositioner samtidig er stramt styrede. De beherskes af arkitektens og byplanlæggerens overblik. Som de skaber Boesen frem for alt rum. Og hun hører til fornyerne af maleriets rum. Både indadtil og udadtil. Indadtil skaber hun – i lighed med malere som den etiopisk fødte, New York-baserede Julie Mehretu, den tyske maler Torben Giehler og på dansk grund Eske Kath – fornyelse ved med stort overskud og dristighed at vride det rumskabende centralperspektiv på nye måder, manipulere med tingenes naturlige skala og ophæve tyngdekraften, så billedrummet sættes i kraftig bevægelse og faretruende skred. Boesen bruger overrumplende skalaspring

cloud gone rampant. Compositionally, the stacked up logs in Ghost I and Ghost II function in very much the same way as the use of modern architecture did in slightly earlier big city visions, such as Cucumber Eyes (2004), Concrete River (2005) and The Mind’s Eye (2005), the walls of wood forming a temporary bulwark of order against an explosive chaos that streams towards the viewer like a tidal wave approaching from beyond. It is no coincidence when Boesen names a twofold painting from 2005 Butterfly Effect 1 and Butterfly Effect 2. In the theory of chaos the butterfly effect refers to the circumstance that even very small changes in a non-linear system can, through chain-reactions, cause major changes at a later stage and in another place. The term can be traced back to the middle of the 20th century when meteorologists mapped apparently random or chaotic weather phenomena that, when analysed over time, created a double graphic spiral pattern reminiscent of butterfly wings. Since then the term has often been used as a metaphor for how apparently chaotic process can be controlled by a form of selforganisation, and how small occurrences can lead to major consequences, even though we humans cannot directly determine the logic that connects them. For Boesen the butterfly effect almost seems to have become an illustration of how her art is made. Like the small changes in the atmosphere created by the wings of a butterfly, in the theoretical example of the chaos theory, influencing the direction and character of a tornado weeks later, any element that Boesen adds to her work affects the whole causing unpredictable semantic changes. As viewers we have no insight into the underlying system representing the origins of the choices Boesen makes. We are simply witnesses to the accumula ting tornado that most of her paintings really are. SPACE AND ARCHITECTURE The tornado effect can not, however, overshadow the fact that Trine Boesen’s compositions are also highly controlled, mastered as they are by an outlook like that of an architect or a city planner. Like them, Boesen first and foremost creates space. She is one of a group of innovative artists exploring space within painting today, space internal to and external to the canvas. Internally, like Ethiopian- born, New York-based artist Julie Mehretu, German painter Torben Giehler and Danish Eske Kath, Boesen renews

til at hængsle tingene sammen på nye måder. Tingene ser virkelige ud, men deres proportioner er ude af takt med virkeligheden. I stedet bliver deres størrelse styret af den betydning og funktion, de har i billedets samlede fortælling (Rosenvinge 2010). Ved at skævvride størrelsesforholdene i et genkendeligt motiv åbner kunstneren mulighed for, at øjet kan snydes til at indlæse en figur i en abstrakt form eller omvendt se en abstrakt form i noget, der ret beset er en figur. Alt kan på et splitsekund forvandle sig, og alt kan forbinde sig med noget andet. Rumlig forbundethed og tidslig samtidighed synes dermed at være to sider af samme sag for Boesen, der væver ydre og indre virkeligheder så tæt sammen, at de ikke længere kan skilles ad. Rent motivisk har Boesen ofte organiseret rummet ved at bruge moderne arkitektur som storformer til at holde billedernes mylder af detaljer på plads. Selvom hun gerne lader arkitekturen henstå ubemalet og flad som et sætstykke, giver hun alligevel beskueren en stærk oplevelse af rumlighed ved at benytte et trefoldigt kunstnerisk greb: for det første et stejlt eller sugende perspektiv. Boesen udnytter bevidst mulighederne for at styre beskueren ind i uvante udsigtspositioner ved hjælp af frø- og fugleperspektiv i kombination med skæve vinkler og flere forsvindingspunkter i samme billede. For det andet arbejder hun med repetition af abstrakte elementer fordelt på fladen som rumskabere, og for det tredje bruger hun overlappende planer til at skabe en fornemmelse af rum bag rum, hvilket afsætter en følelse af, at storbyernes larmende og fortrolige verdener af medmennesker, højhuse, hverdagshændelser og nære ting slår sprækker mod et ukendt og uudgrundeligt rum bag ved. MALERI OG INSTALLATION Trine Boesen arbejder imidlertid også med det fysiske rum omkring billederne. Siden 2002 har hun tegnet på udstillingsvæggene, og siden 2007 har hun ved flere lejligheder åbnet billedrummet ud mod beskueren ved at bruge installationskunstens virkemidler. Startende med soloudstillingen »Strange Days« på Vane Contemporary Art i Newcastle i 2007 har

painting with great strength and daring by twisting and turning the possibilities of spatial construction through linear perspective in new ways, manipulating the natural scale of things and suspending gravity, setting the space of the image so strongly into motion that things seem to threaten to slip out of place. Boesen uses overwhelming leaps of scale to position things together in new ways. The objects in her paintings look real but their proportions are out of tune with reality, their size being dictated by the meaning and function they have within the narrative of the image instead (Rosenvinge 2010). By distorting the dimensions of a recognisable motif, she allows the eye an opportunity to be tricked into seeing figuration in abstract form or conversely an abstract form in something that is actually figuration. In a split second everything can transform itself and everything can connect itself with something else. Spatial connectivity and temporary simultaneity seem to be two sides of the same coin for Boesen as she interweaves inner and outer realities so tightly that they can no longer be separated. In terms of motif, Boesen has often used modern architecture to organise areas of the work into larger forms in order to keep the myriad of details within the image in place. Although she likes to let her architectural motifs remain uncoloured and flat, like a theatrical set piece, she nonetheless gives the viewer a strong experience of spatiality through the use a three-fold artistic method: Firstly a steep or suction-like perspective, where Boesen deliberately exploits the possibilities of directing the viewer into unfamiliar viewpoints, including the assistance of frogs- or birds-eye view perspective, in combination with twisted angles and multiple vanishing points within the same painting. Secondly she makes use of a repetition of abstract elements distributed across the surface to create spatial depth, and finally she uses overlapping planes to create a sense of space behind spaces, evoking an eerie feeling that the noisy and familiar world of the big city, with its multitude of people, high-rise buildings, mundane events and personal issues, is bursting against an unfamiliar and unfathomable space underneath.

Boesen samlet sine malerier i en installatorisk ophængning ved at forlænge deres motiver ud i omgiv elserne ved hjælp af illusionistisk vægmaleri. På »Strange Days« fortsatte de hvirvlende løse brædder i The Wish (2007) fx deres eksplosion uden for billedformatet, mens fyrreskoven i Temptation – Mother Me voksede ud i omgivelserne. Boesens Frisk pust fra kosmos var et egentligt vægmaleri udført i og til en af Kunsthal Charlottenborgs udstillingssale i forbindelse med vægmaleriudstillingen »Til vægs« i 2009. Ved at lade maleriet brede sig ud fra et hjørne forbandt Boesen sit billede med lokalet på en måde, som skabte rum. Maleriet slog på illusionistisk vis hul i muren og åbnede et kik ud mod kosmos, hvorfra et »frisk pust« strømmede ind i form af runde røde kugler ledsaget af skilte, møtrikker, stjerner og andre overraskende objekter. De syntes at suse i høj fart fra det ydre rum ind gennem hullet for at spredes i salen. Motivet var på den ene side et maleri i traditionen fra barokkens monumentale illusionistiske væg- og loftudsmykninger, der på tilsvarende måde åbnede arkitekturen og lukkede en anden, ofte guddommelig eller mytologisk verden ind i arkitekturens konkrete ditto. På den anden side var det også i høj grad en moderne abstrakt komposition, hvis bærende elementer var kosmos’ sorte monokrom og den gentagne kugleform, som udgjorde billedets minimalistiske formelle ledemotiv. Kosmiske fornemmelser fik man også af det 75 m2 store vægmaleri, som Trine Boesen i 2013 skabte til den ottekantede sal i Den Frie Udstillingsbygning for Samtidskunst som bidrag til gruppeudstillingen »Stedet er rummet« om samtidskunstens livtag med science fiction og »rummet« forstået både som galaktisk rum og arkitektonisk rum, herunder selve udstillingsstedet. Under titlen Et andet sted havde Boesen installeret malerier som »tage« på den skrå overside af to fritstående podier. De synes at opfange identificerbare og uidentificerbare flyvende objekter fra det poetiske lyseblå panorama, som Boesen havde bredt ud på væggene bag dem – som himmelrummet over byens tage. Et andet sted trak motiviske veksler på maleriserien UFO, præsenteret tidligere samme år på Boesens soloudstilling hos Galerie MøllerWitt i

PAINTING AND INSTALLATION Trine Boesen not only explores the possibilities of spatial representation within the painting itself but has increasingly explored the physical space surrounding the paintings. Since 2002 she has been drawing on the exhibition walls, and on several occasions, since 2007, she has opened up the pictorial space even further by utilising strategies of installation art. Beginning with the solo exhibition “Strange Days” at Vane Contemporary Art in Newcastle, in 2007, Boesen has assembled her paintings creating installatory arrangements and extended motifs onto the surroundings with the use of illusionary mural painting. In “Strange Days” the whirling pieces of board in The Wish (2007) continued their explosion outside the format of the painting while the pine forest in Temptation – Mother Me (2006) grew out of the picture and into the surroundings. Boesen’s Frisk pust fra kosmos (Fresh Wind from Cosmos) was such a wall painting, carried out in one of the exhibition halls at Kunsthal Charlottenborg for the exhibition “Til vægs” (Against the Wall) in 2009. By letting the painting spread out from one corner, Boesen immersed the image into the space around it in a way that created a new dimension; employing techniques of illusion, the painting struck a ‘hole’ through the wall allowing for a view of cosmos from where a “fresh wind” flowed in the form of round red balls accompanied by signs, nuts and bolts, stars and other surprising objects, that seemed to be rushing in through the gap at high speed from outer space in order to spread out in the exhibition hall. The motif was a painting in so far as it bore resemblance to the tradition of monumental illusionary murals of the baroque, which in a similar way opened up architectural structures, often letting in divine or mythological creatures into the building. On the other hand it was also a modern abstract composition with the black monochrome of cosmos and the repeated ball-shapes constituting the primary bearing elements of a minimalist aesthetic. A sense of cosmic scope was also to be found in the 75 m2 mural Boesen created for the octagonal hall at Den Frie as her contribution to the group exhibition “Stedet er Rummet” (The Place is the Space), in 2013. The exhibition was about the growing interest in science

Aarhus. I denne serie, som har udsigtsposten som arkitektonisk omdrejningspunkt og »observation« som ledemotiv, ser man ligeledes skyer af skilte, piktogrammer, ord, objekter, numre og abstrakte elementer som linjestykker, cirkelslag og pile, der spredes ud i billedernes vægtløse universer. Installationen Et andet sted gav ikke blot et »frisk pust«, men transporterede snarere både sal og beskuer ind i en anden form for rumlighed eller en anden bevidsthedsdimension. Det »andet sted«, som installationen fremsuggererede, bragte velkendte, menneskeskabte objekter i nærkontakt med en blånende uendelighed og uidentificerbare objekter. Installationen skabte derved en uvant form for polaritet mellem fjernt og nært, kendt og ukendt, materielt og immaterielt. Et andet sted udspændte således også beskueren mellem »her« og »der«: mellem kroppens tunge tilstedeværelse i det fysiske rum og en vægtløs rejse ud i imaginære galakser. Men hvad gør indretningen af en udstilling (eller et bidrag til en udstilling) som en samlet installation egentlig ved Boesens ellers todimensionale lærreder? Hvad opnår hun ved at lade psykedeliske mønstre slynge sig som trykbølger ud over væggene, som hun gjorde på sin udstilling »Hej Society« i Aarhus Kunst bygning (2005), eller ved at »hægte« malerierne Miss Blacky White and the Anthills (2006) fast til omgivelserne med sorte udløbere på væggene af det nu hedengangne Galleri Mogadishni (2006). For slet ikke at tale om hendes gennemførte sammenkædning af alle sine lærreder ved hjælp af en kæmpe vægdekoration på den markante soloudstilling World Without End på Vejle Kunstmuseum i 2009. Som på Charlottenborg samme år havde Boesen slået illusionistiske huller i væggen, så noget ukendt kunne trænge ind fra det fjerne. Men tempoet og virkningen var anderledes, for i Vejle svævede farvede kugler i sarte kulører langsomt og yndefuldt som sæbebobler fra hullerne for at brede sig ud over alle væggene på udstillingen som en tyst og forunderlig poesi. Hvad Boesen opnår, er for det første en udvidelse af sit univers ud over rammen og en fremhævelse af de indbyrdes relationer mellem de individuelle malerier på udstillingen. For det andet forskyder hun ma-

fiction and ’space’ in contemporary art, understood as both galactic space and architectural space, including the exhibition space itself. Titled Et andet sted (Another Place) Boesen installed her paintings as slanting ’roofs’ across the diagonal surface of two freestanding podiums. Here they seemed to intercept identifiable and unidentified flying objects from a poetic light blue panorama that Boesen had spread out onto the walls behind them, as the sky over the rooftops of the city. Et andet sted made use of motifs from UFO, a series of paintings presented at Boesen’s solo exhibition at Gallery MøllerWitt in Aarhus earlier the same year. The series featured the outlook post as an architec tural centre point and the theme of ’observation’ as a lead motif, as well as Boesens characteristic clouds of signs, her pictograms, words, objects, numbers and abstract elements, such as line fragments, circles and arrows, were spread across the weightless universe of the paintings. The installation Et andet sted not only brought with it a “fresh wind” but rather transported both the viewer and the hall itself into another realm of spatiality or another dimension of consciousness. This “other place”, which the installation implied, brought wellknown manmade objects into close contact with unidentifiable objects, as well as a bluish infinity of outer space, creating an unaccustomed polarity between near and far, known and unknown, material and immaterial. Et andet sted suspended the viewer in between a ’here’ and a ‘there’, between the corporeal presence of the body in physical space and a weightless journey into imaginary galaxies. But what does the arrangement of an exhibition, or contribution to an exhibition, in the form of an assembled installation actually bring to Boesen’s otherwise two-dimensional canvases? What does she achieve by letting psychedelic patterns intertwine like pressure waves across walls, as she did in her exhibition “Hej Society” at Aarhus Kunstbygning, in 2005, or by fastening the paintings Miss Blacky White and the Anthills (2006) and Miss bLW (2006) to the surroundings of the now defunct Gallery Mogadishni (2006) with black tendrils? Not to mention the carefully orchestrated interconnecting of all her canvases

leriet rent genremæssigt: Værkerne er ikke længere »staffelimalerier« i traditionel forstand, men i modsætning til fx Franz Ackermanns og Katharina Grosses maleriinstallationer bemægtiger de sig heller ikke gallerirummet fuldstændigt. Boesens udstillinger placerer sig bevidst skævt i forhold til begge kategorier. Værkerne er hverken staffelimaleri eller installation, og så alligevel lidt af begge dele. Endelig udløser iscenesættelsen en art dobbeltinvitation til beskueren, som dels opfordres til at opleve og aflæse den samlede præsentation som en helhed, hvor billederne refererer til hinanden på kryds og tværs af rummet, dels indbydes til at fordybe sig i de enkelte billeders myretuer hver for sig. På den måde inviteres beskueren til en mere kompleks oplevelse, end malerier oftest gør. Det var særlig tydeligt på Boesens udstilling »Everything is Blinking« i det københavnske galleri Beaver Projects i 2012, hvor hun som noget nyt havde prøvet kræfter med det cirkelrunde billedformat, her udstillet i en totaliscenesættelse med natsorte vægge overstrøet med stjernetåger udført med poscapen. Som helhed signalerede installationen »kosmos«, men de runde lærreder opfordrede samtidig som fjerne, isolerede kloder sat under lup til, at man granskede deres magiske, vægtløse verdener hver især. I modsætning til den egentlige installationskunst berøver Boesens iscenesættelser af maleriet ikke beskueren overblikket. Selvom det totale udstillingsrum naturligvis ikke kan overskues i sin helhed med ét blik, er det stadig beskueren forundt at overskue det enkelte lærred. Det, installeringen i Beaver Projects gjorde, var snarere at gøre beskueren rumligt desorienteret, og det havde nok så meget at gøre med de svimlende perspektiver i de runde, ligesom svævende malerier selv, som det skyldtes, at udstillingen var iscenesat som en installation, hvor rondellerne blinkede en i møde fra uvant høje eller lave positioner på rummets stjernehimmel. Stedspecifik totaliscenesættelse og runde lærreder har Boesen arbejdet videre med i 2014 på soloudstillingen »Measuring Space« i det københavnske galleri Kant. Her delte hun udstillingsrummet i to: et grønt til serien Wanderlust og et hvidt til de runde malerier

into one huge wall decoration at the significant solo exhibition World Without End at Vejle Museum of Art, in 2009. As at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the same year, Boesen made illusionistic holes in the walls, allowing things unknown to penetrate from the outside, but in Vejle the pace and impact of the piece was different. Coloured balls in delicate hues drifted gracefully and slowly from the perforated surfaces of the walls like soap bubbles, spreading themselves out all over the walls of the exhibition as hushed and wonderful poetry. What Boesen achieves is firstly an expansion of her universe beyond the frame of the painting, effecting an enhancement of the mutual relationships between the individual paintings in the exhibition. Secondly she displaces the genre of painting. The pieces are no longer ’easel paintings’ in a traditional sense, but unlike the installations of Franz Ackermann and Katharina Grosse, they do not completely overtake the gallery space either. Boesen’s exhibitions consciously position themselves askew in relation to both categories. Her paintings are neither one nor the other, but then again, in turn they are a bit of both. The staging of her work releases a kind of dual invitation into the hands of the viewer, who on the one hand is encouraged to perceive the assembled presentation as a whole, in which the paintings actively interrelate, and on the other, is invited to become absorbed into the anthills of each individual painting. In this way the viewer is invited into another, more complex, experience than what painting often has to offer. This was particularly evident at Boesen’s exhibition “Everything is Blinking” at the Copenhagen gallery Beaver Projects, in 2012, where she, as something new, explored a circular picture format in an installation with night-black walls covered with clusters of stars drawn with Posca pens. As a whole the exhibition signalled ’cosmos’ but at the same time the round canvases, like remote, isolated spheres put under a magnifying glass, encouraged the viewer to examine each of their unique magical weightless worlds. In contrast to installation art per se, Boesen’s staging of painting does not rob the spectator of his or her outlook. Even though the exhibition area cannot be viewed in its entirety in a single glance, the viewer is given the opportunity of

i serien Grey Scale. Kontrasten mellem farveskala og gråtoneskala, det grønne rums relative mørke og det – pga. kontrasten – nærmest lysende hvide rum skabte en kontrastrig sanseoplevelse, hvor de veksel virkninger mellem rumlig forbundethed og tidslig samtidighed, som Boesen arbejder med i sine malerier, syntes at forplante sig til det omgivende rum. I forhold til tidligere introducerer Grey Scale og Wanderlust en forenkling og reduktion af de figurative elementer – tydeligst nok i Grey Scale. Serien indeholder ganske vist »dokumentariske« elementer fra bybilleder i København, Berlin og Marrakesh, men de er fortolket så abstrakt, at malerierne bliver til det, som antropologen Marc Augé har kaldt for ikke-steder, dvs. anonyme steder, der kan findes hvor som helst i den globaliserede og urbaniserede verden af i dag, steder blottet for lokalkolorit og kulturel foran kring i »stedet«. Til gengæld har Boesen forlenet dem med en spacy vægtløshed, der gør dem til steder af en anden verden. Det arkitektoniske og abstrakt-geometriske rykkede således i forgrunden på udstillingen »Measuring Space« – også rent konkret, idet Boesen i galleriets forum havde udført vægmaleriet Start with the end hen over rummets hjørne. Maleriets geometriske optegninger med hvidt på sort baggrund trak tråde tilbage til Sol Lewitts monumentale vægtegninger – dog tilsat Boesens umiskendelige dynamisering af billedrummet og spil på rummets dybde og uendelighed. Samtidig pegede Start with the end frem mod Boesens separatudstilling »New Resort« på Trapholt i efteråret 2014, især til den foreløbige kulmination på hendes arbejde med maleriets rumlige dimensioner i totalinstallationen The Grand Cabinet. Her dannede værkets 4,1 meter høje arkitektur et asymmetrisk stjerneformet maleri-som-kulisse-rum, der fuldstændigt omsluttede den besøgende, der som en opdagelsesrejsende bevægede sig ind i dets indre for at udforske dets indre landskab. På de udstillinger, hvor Boesen har forlænget billedets univers ud over lærredet med enten figurative eller ornamentale bemalinger, sker der imidlertid også noget andet. Her gennembrydes barrieren mellem værkets og beskuerens rum, idet bemalingerne omkring lærrederne skaber tvivl om, om hvor græn-

grasping the idea of a single canvas. In contrast, the installation at Beaver Projects made the viewer spatially disorientated, which probably had more to do with the dizzying perspectives of the round, almost floating paintings themselves, rather than the fact that the exhibition was staged as an installation, in which luminous roundels glimmered from unfamiliar positions in the starry sky of the exhibition space. Boesen continued working with round canvasses and site-specific all-encompassing stagings at her solo exhibition “Measuring Space” at the Copenhagen gallery Kant, in 2014. Here she divided the exhibition space into two: A green area for the series Wanderlust and a white area for the round canvasses from the series Grey Scale. The difference between colour-scale and grey-tone, the relative darkness of the green space and, by contrast, the almost glowing white space, created a rich sensory experience in which the interaction between spatial connectedness and temporal simultaneity, which Boesen works with in her paintings, seemed to extend itself to the surrounding gallery. Compared with earlier work, Grey Scale and Wanderlust introduced a simplification and reduction of the figurative elements, possibly most evident in Grey Scale. The series may contain ’documentary’ elements from cityscapes of Copenhagen, Berlin and Marrakech, but they have been interpreted so abstractly that the paintings become what anthropologist Marc Augé has described as non-places, meaning anonymous places one might find anywhere in the globalised and urbanised world of today, places devoid of local character and cultural anchoring to a ’place’, yet Boesen has endowed her images with a spacey weightlessness that makes them into places from another world. Architectural and abstract geometry quite literally moved to the foreground in the exhibition “Measuring Space” as Boesen created Start with the End, a mural spread across a corner of the exhibition area at the front of the gallery. The geometrical outlines of the painting, white on a black background, hark back to Sol Lewitt’s monumental wall drawings but with the addition of Boesen’s unmistakeable dynamic activation of the pictorial space, and her play on the depth and infinity of space. At the same time Start with the End pointed

SPACE ODYSSEY I 200 Ă&#x2014; 300 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2011

sen går, og om den stadig er der. Vi er så vant til at betragte malerier som en kunstform, hvis grænser trækkes op af rammen, at vi sjældent tænker over, at stærke billeder kan indeholde en auratisk dynamik, dvs. en udstråling, der gør, at de oplader og erobrer rummet omkring sig i en grad, så intet andet kan hænge i deres nærhed. Boesens vægmalerier kan opfattes som en synlig- og billedliggørelse af denne for så vidt usynlige, men dog sansbare udstråling. Tydeligst bliver det måske i hendes installering af Space Odyssey I (2011) på Holstebro Kunstmuseums udstilling »Psych-Out. Psykedelisk samtidskunst« (2011). Her blev billedets egen rosa grundering forlænget »auratisk« ud i omgivelserne, idet en stærkere pink farve på væggen omkring billedet skabte en koloristisk udstråling, der kunne skærpe opmærksomheden over for de trykbølger, der udgår fra dets eksplosive motiv. TID OG HASTIGHED Et af installationskunstens kendetegn er, at den udstrækker oplevelsen af kunstværket i tid (Petersen 2009: 41-42). Dette træk udnytter Trine Boesen bevidst, når hun iscenesætter sine malerier installatorisk. Læg dertil, at hendes detaljerealisme og de overraskende sammensyninger af motivelementer også er med til at få beskueren til at dvæle nysgerrigt og undersøgende ved værket. Selvom hendes dynamiske kompositioner umiddelbart sender signaler om et højhastighedsliv i overhalingsbanen, som det fx ses i The Bridge (2010), støtter detaljeringsgraden den langsomme fordybelse. Desuden er hvert enkelt værk i realiteten et produkt af en langsom og tidskrævende arbejdsproces. Det vil således ikke være forkert at sige, at den fordybede beskuers aflæsningstid rent tidsligt mimer kunstnerens produktionstid, og at disses langsomhed står i et spændingsforhold til den erfaring af tempo og acceleration, som billederne kommunikerer. Boesens billeder fungerer således som en slags krydsningspunkt for forskellige tidsligheder: det langsomme og det hurtige, det stillestående og det bevægede. Det er måske nøglen til, at de så effektivt formidler en fornemmelse af kaos og »altings simultane væren til stede i verden« (Bonde

forward to Boesen’s solo exhibition “New Resort” at Trapholt, in the Autumn of 2014, and in particular to the culmination of her work with spatiality and painting in the total installation The Grand Cabinet where a 4.1 meter tall architectural structure formed an asymmetric star-shaped painting-as-theatrical-set-piece, which completely enclosed the visitor, who as a voyager was able to move into the core of the work to explore its inner landscape. In exhibitions where Boesen has extended the universe of the painting beyond the canvas, with either figurative or ornamental areas of paint spilling out onto the walls, something else happens; the interface between the space of the painting and the space of the spectator is penetrated as areas of paint surge beyond the frame creating doubt as to where the borders are, even to whether they are there at all. We are so used to considering paintings as an art form in which the circumference of the work is defined by the frame, that we rarely consider that strong images can contain an auroral dynamic; a radiance with which they charge and conquer the space around them to such an extent that nothing else can hang in their proximity. Boesen’s murals can be perceived as such visualisations, as representations, so to speak, of invisible yet perceptible radiance. This becomes most obvious perhaps in her installation Space Odyssey I (2011) shown at the exhibition “Psych-Out. Psychedelic Contemporary Art” at Holstebro Kunstmuseum. Here the pale pink base of the painting was extended ’aurorally’ into the surroundings by a much deeper pink colour painted directly onto the wall around the picture, creating a colour graded radiance that enhanced the awareness of pressure waves emanating from within the explosive motif. TIME AND SPEED One of the characteristics of installation art is that it extends the temporal experience of the work (Petersen 2009: 41-42). Trine Boesen intentionally exploits this characteristic when she stages her paintings as installations. Add to this her detailed realism and surprising combinations of motif elements, which further contribute toward allowing the viewer to dwell on the

2007: 37). På den ene side forholder de sig til det overvældende informationsflow, som mange nutidige mennesker udsættes for; på den anden side etablerer de små oaser af skønhed og fordybelse. HYBRIDITET Jeg lagde ud med at kalde Trine Boesens malerier for hybrider, og som vi har set, er de hybrider i mere end én forstand. Som indledningen fastslog, forener de forskellige stiltræk. Boesen trækker på bl.a. psykedelisk kunst, fantasymaleri og fotobaseret realisme, men også på arkitekturtegning, illusionistisk monumentalmaleri og »pittura immedia« (Peter Weibel). Rent teknisk bygger malerierne på et samvirke mellem forskellige medier og teknologier: fotografi, internet, overheadprojektor, tegning, maleri, co llage, installation. Læg dertil, at hendes billedverdener krydser forskellige tider og skyder forskellige rum ind i hinanden. Motivisk har hun en enestående evne til at få alt muligt ellers uforeneligt og væsensforskelligt til at forliges på fladen, så billedet på én gang virker overbevisende sammenhængende og tydeligt konstrueret. Dermed også være sagt, at Boesens malerier er kontrollerede hybrider. Selvom mangfoldigheden i det enkelte billede til tider kan virke overvældende, er det ikke alt, der får lov at komme med i et billede. Den overordnede idé med billedet styrer udvælgelsen af elementerne, og de indholds- og formmæssige hensyn afbalanceres nøje. Derfor de repeterede rumskabere og en farveskala indskrænket i det enkelte billede til en begrænset palet, der kan sikre en koloristisk helhedseffekt. Kulturelle hybrider indeholder altid spændinger, og Boesens hybride verdener flere end gennemsnittet. Rent oplevelsesmæssigt kan de afsætte en spænding i beskueren mellem »her« og »der« – mellem beskuerens reale rum og kropslige tilstedeværelse »her og nu« og billedets illusionistiske rum, der fremsuggererer en anden tid og et andet sted eller en anden bevidsthedsdimension: drømmens eller visionens. Uanset hvilket tema Boesen tager op, synes hun at være tilbøjelig til at modellere det over spændingsforhold, fx mellem stort og småt, fjernt og nært eller acceleration og langsomhed. Hun bygger også billedet op om-

work with curiosity and thought. While her dynamic compositions at first seem to indicate representations of life lived at high-speed in the fast lane, as in The Bridge (2010), the level of detailing in contrast supports a mode of extended deliberation. In addition, each piece is, in reality, the product of a slow and time-consuming work process. It would therefore not be wrong to say that, in terms of time, the amount allocated for absorbed consideration by the viewer mimics the production time of the artist, and that the slowness of both stand in a relationship of tension to an experience of speed and acceleration that the images initially communicate. In this way Boesen’s work functions as a kind of intersection of different temporalities, the slow and the fast, the static and that which is in motion. It is perhaps an explanation, too, that her paintings so efficiently communicate a sense of chaos, a sense of “all things simultaneously being present in the world” (Bonde 2007: 37). On the one hand they relate to an overwhelming flow of information, which many contemporary people are exposed to, and on the other hand they establish small oasis of beauty and contemplation. HYBRIDITY I began by calling Trine Boesen’s paintings hybrids, and as we have seen they are hybrids in more than just one sense. As described in the introduction, her work unites different stylistic features of psychedelic art, fantasy painting and photo-based realism, but also architectural drawing, illusionistic monumental painting and “pittura immedia” (Peter Weibel). In technical terms the paintings are founded on the interaction between different media and technologies: on photography, the internet, the overhead projector, drawing, painting, collage and installation. Add to this that her pictorial worlds intersect different eras and histories, pushing and folding a variety of spatial identities into each other at the same time. In terms of her motifs Boesen has a unique ability to get all sorts of otherwise incompatible and fundamentally different things to reconcile on the surface of the painting, and in such a way, that the image seems both convincingly cohe rent and lucidly constructed. It is therefore worth

kring samvirkende modsætninger som fx de tilbagevendende dualismer mellem natur og kultur og mellem kaos og orden. For Boesen er sådanne polariteter og spændinger et nutidigt vilkår, som maleriet ikke i sig selv kan ændre, men nok hjælpe os til at reflektere over og forstå: »Jeg tror, vi lever i en tid, hvor næsten alting er muligt, virkeligheden overgår langt, hvad man overhovedet kunne forestille sig, informationsflowet og massekommunikationen er tungere end nogensinde, og vi er meget »globale«. Vores tid er meget dynamisk, meget planlagt, meget ambitiøs, meget kaotisk og i høj grad fyldt med kontraster. Polariteten er udtalt i både positiv og negativ forstand. Jeg forsøger ikke at forandre »vores tid« i mine malerier; jeg forsøger at indfange den.« (Boesen citeret i Grosenick 2006: 35)

noting that Boesen’s paintings are controlled hybrids. Although the diversity of her imagery can seem over whelming, it is not simply anything or everything that is allowed into a painting. The overall concept of the piece decides the selection of elements and considerations of content and form are carefully balanced, as in the repeated use of structural elements and the use of limited colour schemes, narrowed down to a restricted palette to ensure a unifying colouristic effect. Cultural hybrids always contain tensions and Boesen’s hybrid worlds hold more than average. From an experiential perspective they can create a tension in the viewer between ’here’ and ’there’, between the physical reality and bodily presence of the viewer, in the ‘here and now’, and the illusionistic space of the image, which is generating another time and another place, or another dimension of consciousness, namely the dimension of dreams and visions. Regardless of what theme Boesen brings up, she seems to be inclined to model them on the relationships of that ten sion, i.e. between big and small, distant and near or acceleration and slowness. She builds up her images using interacting opposites, as in the recurrent dualism between nature and culture, and between chaos and order. For Boesen such polarities and tensions represent a contemporary condition, which the painting in itself cannot change but possibly may help us to reflect on and understand: “I think we live in an era where nearly everything is possible, where reality far surpasses what one could possibly imagine, the flow of information and mass communication is heavier than ever and we are very ’global’. Our times are very dynamic, very planned, very ambitious, very chaotic and to a great extent filled with contrasts. This polarity is noticeable in both a positive and negative sense. I’m not trying to change ’our time’ in my paintings; I’m trying to capture it.” (Quoted in Grosenick 2006: 35)

LITTERATUR Bolter, Jay David og Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Bonde, Lisbeth. »Blomster & bomber.« In Girl power & Boyhood. Red. Lene Burkard. Odense: Kunsthallen Brandts, 2007: 24-89. Breuvart, Valérie, red. Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting. London, New York: Phaidon Press, 2002. Grosenick, Uta. »Where Do You Come From?«. In Trine Boesen. Paintings. Red. Trine Boesen. København, 2006. Jacobsen, Lise Skytte. Ophobninger. Moderne skulpturelle fænomener. København: forlaget politisk revy, 2005. Junge-Stevnsborg, Kirse. »Trine Boesen and the Butterfly Effect.« In Trine Boesen. Paintings. Red. Trine Boesen. København, 2006: 6-11. Kjems, Folke. »Psykedelisk samtidskunst.« In Psych-Out. Psykedelisk samtidskunst. Red. Jakob Vengberg Sevel. Holstebro: Holstebro Kunstmuseum, 2011: 3-4. Petersen, Anne Ring. Installationskunsten mellem billede og scene. København: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2009. Rosenvinge, Line. »Når det bobler og brister.« Copenhagen, 2010 of http://trineboesen.com/ naar-det-bobler-og-brister. Accessed 12. september 2014. Weibel, Peter. »Pittura/Immedia: Painting in the Nineties between Mediated Visuality and Visuality in Context.« In Contemporay Painting in Context. Red. Anne Ring Petersen et al. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013: 4364.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Bonde, Lisbeth. “Blomster & bomber”. In Girlpower & Boyhood. Ed. Lene Burkard. Odense: Kunsthallen Brandts, 2007: 24-89. Breuvart, Valérie, ed. Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting. London, New York: Phaidon Press, 2002. Grosenick, Uta. “Where Do You Come From?” In Trine Boesen. Paintings. Ed. Trine Boesen. Copenhagen, 2006. Jacobsen, Lise Skytte. Ophobninger. Moderne skulpturelle fænomener. Copenhagen: Forlaget Politisk Revy, 2005. Junge-Stevnsborg, Kirse. “Trine Boesen and the Butterfly Effect.” In Trine Boesen. Paintings. Ed. Trine Bosen. Copenhagen, 2006: 6-11. Kjems, Folke. »Psykedelisk samtidskunst.« In PsychOut. Psykedelisk samtidskunst. Ed. Jakob Vengberg Sevel. Holstebro: Holstebro Kunstmuseum, 2011: 3-4. Petersen, Anne Ring. Installationskunsten mellem billede og scene. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2009. Rosenvinge, Line. »Når det bobler og brister.« Copenhagen, 2010 from http://trineboesen.com/ naar-det-bobler-og-brister. Accessed 12 September 2014. Weibel, Peter. “Pittura/Immedia: Painting in the Nineties between Mediated Visuality and Visuality in Context.” In Contemporay Painting in Context. Ed. Anne Ring Petersen et al. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013: 43-64.

NEW RESORT

TRAPHOLT

THE GRAND CABINET New Resort, Trapholt, installation view walls and floor 146 m2, acrylic and pencil on wood, 2014

THE GRAND CABINET EN SAMTALE MELLEM TRINE BOESEN OG KURATOR ANNA KROGH (BRANDTS) A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TRINE BOESEN AND CURATOR ANNA KROGH (BRANDTS)

AF / BY ANNA KROGH

MAN KAN DA IKKE STÅ I ET MALERI? Alligevel er det dér, enhver samtale om Trine Boesens seneste monumentalværk The Grand Cabinet må begynde. Intet mindre end et 146 m2 stort rum bestående af bemalede gulve og vægge holdt i en begrænset farvepalet: nuancerede blå og sorte farverum, der vækkes til live af Boesens dynamiske, både kantede og bløde streg. Skæve vinkler og brudte forløb skaber et hurlumhejhus på stoffer. Installationen lægger op til et fysisk møde med et maleri i et udvidet felt, vildt og uregerligt. Man aner sporene til kunstnerkollegaer som Katharina Grosse og Jessica Stockholder, hvor den kunstneriske kraft bruges til at sprænge alle rammer for maleriet og skabe et åbent, virtuelt rum. Samtidig er The Grand Cabinet så skarpt og stramt komponeret, at man forstår, der er en styring af rummet, at der er en vej lagt til rette for øjet, kroppen og sanserne. Hvis man kender følelsen af at stå med øjnene rettet mod en stjernehimmel og virkelig mærke uendeligheden, så ved man, hvordan det er at træde ind i Boesens univers. Det er vitterligt som om at stå i en galakse af stjerner, planeter, rumsonder, satellitter og andre ufoer – rettelig talt uidentificerede flyvende objekter. Det er måske her, den oplagte reference til skrækfilmen Dr. Caligaris Kabinet fra 1920 ligger, instrueret af Robert Wiene. Den legendariske

YOU CAN’T JUST STAND IN A PAINTING? Yet this is where any conversation about Trine Boesen’s recent monumental work The Grand Cabinet must begin. Nothing less than a 146 m2 space consisting of painted floors and walls held in a limited colour palette: Delicate blue and black fields of colour come alive through Boesen’s dynamic line work, both angular and organic. Twisted viewpoints and sequences of interrupted contours create the impression of a funhouse on drugs. The installation presents a very physical encounter with a painting in an expanded field, wild and unruly. One senses the influence of fellow artists like Katharina Grosse and Jessica Stockholder, where artistic force is used to collapse the limitations of painting, creating an open, virtual space. At the same time The Grand Cabinet is so focussed and tightly composed that you realise the work makes use of deliberate gesture and direction; that a path has been provided for the eye, the body and the senses. If you know the feeling of looking up at a starry sky and really sensing infinity, then you’ll know what it’s like to step into Boesen’s work. It is unmistakably like standing in a galaxy of stars, planets, space probes, satellites and other UFOs – literally unidentified flying objects. Perhaps this is where the obvious reference to the horror film Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet

filmscenografi, skabt af Hans Janowitz og Carl Mayer, fungerer som et sindbillede på den mentalt ustabile hovedpersons psykiske tilstand. Også i Boesens sci-fi-univers udfordres den fysiske oplevelse og den sætter sig som en mental stemning; ikke som en psykisk ubalance, men snarere handler det om at lade det energiske rum gå i symbiose med betragterens sind. Som en ikke uinteressant pointe voksede der, ud af den amerikanske teoretiker Rosalind Krauss’ berømte essay Sculpture in the Expanded Field fra 1979, også tanker om et maleri i et udvidet felt; det var ikke kun skulpturen, som i 1970’erne kunne nedbryde det traditionelle rum, vælte soklerne og gribe ind i den omkringliggende virkelighed, også maleriets rammer kunne testes. I 1990’erne gik malere til maleriet som et tredimensionalt rum, og Trine Boesen er en af Danmarks fremmeste eksponenter for denne praksis. Hun har om nogen eksperimenteret med maleriets virkemidler. The Grand Cabinet er ingen undtagelse. I det fysiske rum møder øjet endnu en dybde, nemlig billedets todimensionale rum. Det er ud fra den malede flade, at bevægelsen sker. Det svimler. AK: Ud af teorierne om maleriets udvidede felt kunne det være interessant at diskutere, om forståelsen af The Grand Cabinet egentlig ligger i værket anskuet som en skulptur eller som et maleri. Har det nogen betydning, hvilken værkkategori vi taler inden for? TB: Jeg kalder selv The Grand Cabinet for en maleri installation. På den måde kan man tale om værket på flere måder og netop ikke ud fra en klar definition. Jeg har været interesseret i at iscenesætte maleriet i sådan en grad, at det har bevæget sig væk fra at kunne opfattes som et egentligt maleri, og man vil heller ikke kunne placere værket i en skulpturel tradition. Det er en sammensmeltning af flere genre; det formgivende, det sceniske og det malede. På den måde er The Grand Cabinet egentlig blot en naturlig udvidelse af det hybride univers, jeg ellers bevæger mig i. Jeg har længe arbejdet med fladen og rummet i mine malerier og undersøgt, hvordan man visuelt kan skabe illusioner af rum og tale om noget uendeligt og sam-

from 1920 is located, by German director Robert Wiene. The legendary film set design, created by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, symbolizes the mental state of the emotionally unstable protagonist. Boesen’s sci-fi universe also challenges the physical experience of the work, allowing it to settle as a state of mind; not as an emotional imbalance, rather it is about letting the energy of the space act in symbiosis with the viewer’s mind. It is not an uninteresting point, to consider, that out of the American theorist Rosalind Krauss’ famous essay Sculpture in the Expanded Field, from 1979, grew thoughts on painting in an expanded field as well. In the 1970’s not only sculpture would collapse traditional concepts of space, defy the dogma of the pedestal and affect the surrounding reality, but also the framework of painting would be challenged. In the 1990’s painters took on painting as three-dimensional space and Trine Boesen is one of Denmark’s most prominent exponents of this practice, having experimented considerably with the possibilities and implications of painting. The Grand Cabinet is no exception. Within the physical scope of the piece, the eye meets yet another depth, namely the two-dimensional space of the image. It is from this painted surface that the motion of the work takes place. It whirls. AK: In relation to theories of painting in the expanded field, it might be interesting to discuss whether an understanding of The Grand Cabinet is anchored in seeing the work as sculpture or as painting. Does it matter, which category of work we refer to? TB: I call The Grand Cabinet a painting-installation. In this way you can talk about the work using several approaches, rather than limiting it to a clear definition. I’ve been interested in staging painting to such a degree that it shifted from what could be perceived as an actual painting but at the same time you wouldn’t be able to place it within the tradition of sculpture either. It is an amalgamation of several genres: the style, the staging, the painted surfaces, and in this way The Grand Cabinet is really just a natural extension of the hybrid universe I usually work in. I’ve been developing strategies in relation to space and surface in my paintings for a while now, exploring how to visually create the illusion of space

tidig tale om virkeligheden som kulisse. Jeg ved ikke, om det har en betydning, om man kalder The Grand Cabinet for et ret stort tredimensionalt maleri, eller om man kalder det installatorisk kulissemaleri eller noget helt tredje, for det er vel netop en af pointerne i arbejdet med maleriet i det udvidede felt, at det gør noget andet, end det plejer, og at det dér andet måske er dét, som er med til at forny opfattelsen af, hvad maleri er i dag. Jeg gik til The Grand Cabinets vægge ud fra nogle andre præmisser, end hvis det havde været et almindeligt maleri, fordi jeg vidste, at det var et totalt univers, jeg var i gang med at opbygge, men jeg forholdt mig til processen, som var det ét stort gigantmaleri.

while evoking something infinite and also representing reality as a false front. I don’t know if it would be meaningful to call The Grand Cabinet a rather large three-dimensional painting or if you could call it an installation set-painting or something else. It’s precisely one of the points of working with painting in the expanded field, that the work does something else than usual, and that this something else is perhaps part of renewing the understanding of what painting is today. I approached the surfaces of The Grand Cabinet on different terms than I would have if it had been an ordinary painting because I knew it was a total universe I was building, but I engaged in the process as if it were one big giant painting.

AK: Hvordan komponerer du et komplekst værk som The Grand Cabinet?

AK: How do you compose a complex work such as The Grand Cabinet?

TB: Jeg havde opsat nogle dogmer for mig selv, både for at kunne skabe ét stort hele med så få virkemidler som muligt og for derigennem at frigøre mit visuelle sprog, så det blev muligt for mig at slippe de overvejelser, jeg normalt har i forbindelse med maleprocessen. Jeg havde valgt paletten sort, blå, hvid for at skabe ro i det turbulente virvar af streger og former, som skulle danne oplevelsen af et uendeligt rum. Og pga. mine efterhånden mange undersøgelser med at ophæve centralperspektivet i værket, kunne jeg frit bevæge mig rundt på alle flader og skabe de indgange og udgange, som var nødvendige for at skabe rum i værket. Jeg havde jo en idé om, at jeg med Brian Eno i det ene øre og Tortoise i det andet kunne ophæve tyngdekraften og sammenflette motiver af fjerne galakser, reminiscenser fra dagligdagen, ordensregler, manualer, maskindele, skilte, forsvindingspunkter og eksplosioner til ét hele.

TB: I had laid out some dogmas for myself. I wanted to create one large whole with as few devices as possible, but also, and through this, to liberate my visual vocabulary to such an extent that it would be possible for me to ditch some of the considerations I usually act upon in the painting process. I chose the palette of black, blue and white to create a sense of calm within the turbulent mesh of lines and shapes that were to create the experience of infinite space in the work. As a result of many of my earlier explorations into abandoning linear perspective, I could freely move around on all the surfaces creating the entrances and exits needed for a sense of space in the piece. I had the idea that I, with Brian Eno in one ear and Tortoise in the other, would be able to cancel the pull of gravity, merging images of distant galaxies, reminiscences from daily life, rules and regulations, manuals, machine parts, signs, vanishing points and explosions into a single whole.

AK: Det er interessant, at du insisterer på at fremhæve billedelementerne, som du henter fra virkelighedens verden. Installationen synes jo også at henvise til en æstetik båret af kulissen og det scenografiske, altså et fiktivt univers. Du har selv talt om din interesse for filmen Dr. Caligaris Kabinet? Kan du uddybe det?

AK: It is interesting that you insist on highlighting pictorial elements, which you fetch in the real world. The installation also appears to refer to an aesthetic informed by stage sets and scenography, i.e. a fictional universe. You have spoken about your interest in the film Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet? Could you elaborate?

THE GRAND CABINET New Resort, Trapholt, installation view, detail walls and floor 146 m2, acrylic and pencil on wood, 2014

TB: Min måde at arbejde med rummet og konstruktionen i The Grand Cabinet på er inspireret af filmen på den måde, at jeg har samlet nogle af filmens virkemidler op. Det vil sige dens arbejde med filmkulissen og det skævvredne univers. The Grand Cabinet er ikke en parafrase over Robert Wienes værk, men ved at se filmen fik jeg for alvor blod på tanden til at forfølge en idé, der så længe havde været på mit tegnebord. Den tanke, jeg havde om at rumliggøre mit maleri ved at skabe en kulisseagtig iscenesættelse, blev på en måde rammet ind af den film. Hvor filmen er fortættet og klaustrofobisk, har jeg i The Grand Cabinet åbnet op ud mod universet. Dr. Caligaris Kabinet afspejler en psykisk tilstand ved at bruge frygten og det utrygge, bl.a. igennem scenografien; den synliggør en tilstand af virkelighedsforvrængning. Jeg oplever, at filmens kulisser gør, at man fanges ind i universet trods den tydelige iscenesættelse. Jeg var også interesseret i at skabe et miljø, der kunne gribe fat i beskueren og synliggøre et ikke-sted, et sted, som ikke findes, men som mange alligevel godt kender. AK: Det med, at beskueren så at sige er tænkt ind i værket – dels ved det simple faktum, at det er tredimensionalt, dels ved, at du holder fast i at henvise til et miljø, som mange kender – synes at gå igen hos dig. Det er jo et velkendt greb fra 90’erne at lægge betydningsdannelsen og aflæsningen af meningen med værket over til betragteren. En praksis, du selv er eksponent for. Hvad er det, maleriet kan og skal kunne for at være vedkommende for betragteren? TB: Ja, det er ret svært at komme med en opskrift på det, men jeg mener, at maleriet er en stærk udtryksform, som i den grad kan kommunikere idéer og følelser. Alt er muligt på et lærred. Essentielle tanker kan oversættes og synliggøres i maleriet. Der er så stor spændvidde for, hvad maleriet undersøger, og hvordan det ser ud. Nogle gange taler det lige ind i sjælen på en, fordi det rammer et ømt sted eller åbner op for noget helt nyt, man ikke havde set komme. Maleriet kan udfoldes på mange måder, som gør det vedkommende. I min praksis arbejder jeg med visuelt at involvere betragteren i værket. Det gør jeg bl.a.

TB: My method for working with the space and the construction of The Grand Cabinet is inspired by the film, in as much as I have made use of some of its effects and devises, i.e. the use of theatrical movie sets and the warped universe. The Grand Cabinet is not a paraphrase of Robert Wiene’s work but when I saw the film it really pushed me into pursuing ideas I had been considering working on for a long time. The thoughts I had about expanding my painting by creating a set-like staging of the work were somehow framed by the film, but where the film is dense and claustrophobic, I chose to open up The Grand Cabinet releasing it out toward the universe. Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet reflects a mental condition of fear and insecurity using, among other things, elaborate set design. It reveals a state where reality is distorted. I noticed that the sets in the film allow you to become caught up in the universe, despite the obvious staging. I was also interested in creating an environment that could grab the viewer and make a nonplace visible, a place that does not exist, but would be recognised by many even so. AK: The idea of the spectator being incorporated into the piece, so to speak – partly by the simple fact that it is three-dimensional, partly by you insisting on referring to an environment that many recognise – seems to be a recurring theme in your work. It is a well-known strategy from the 1990’s to place both the production and perception of meaning into the hands of the viewer. A practice you are also an exponent for. What is it that painting can and should be able to offer to be relevant to the viewer? TB: Well, it’s a bit tricky coming up with a recipe for that but I feel that painting is a powerful means of expression, that to a very high degree painting is able to communicate ideas and emotions. Anything is possible on a canvas. Essential thoughts can be translated and made visible in a painting. There is such a large range for what painting can examine and how it looks. Sometimes it speaks directly to your soul because it strikes a sore spot or opens up to something completely new, you never saw coming. Painting can

igennem mine installatoriske iscenesættelser af maleriet. Jeg inviterer betragteren til at opleve en helhed, hvor værkerne taler sammen på kryds og tværs. Jeg har en idé om, at afstanden mellem betragter og værk nedbrydes, fordi værket ikke længere er afgrænset af rammen, men griber ud i rummet, eller fordi man bliver nødt til at bevæge sig rundt i det. AK: Hvor henter du din inspiration? TB. Jeg er lidt som en svamp, der suger alt til sig. Jeg kan hele tiden se nye forbindelser mellem forskellige ting, der ikke nødvendigvis hører sammen. Jeg fotograferer meget af det, som jeg møder på min vej, og det bruger jeg som billedforlæg. På den måder bliver maleriet ofte dannet ud fra observationer og registreringer, jeg har gjort mig. Det er tit det, der omgiver os, jeg er interesseret i, eksempelvis arkitektur. Den fortæller om tiderne og stederne og skaber de rum, vi agerer i. Samtidig er jeg også optaget af underlige detaljer som ting, der har mistet deres funktion eller blot er efterladte ting. Den tingslige verden sat op mod det uhåndgribelige har altid været et interessefelt for mig. Jeg har set en del på barokken og dens uendelighedsfilosofier, fordi det er spændende med tankerne og idéerne fra den tid. Det virker, som om barokkens idéer og virkemidler, når de trækkes op til vores tid, stadig er noget, vi kan relatere til. En film som Gravity af den mexicanske instruktør Alfonso Cuárón fra 2013, hvor det store uendelige rum perspektiverer både angsten og tiltrækningskraften ved den udefinerbare uendelighed, er ligeledes inspirerende. The extended moment, hvor alting dirrer før det splintres i tusind stykker, ændrer form og bliver til noget andet. Jeg har mange referencer og inspirationskilder, både fra kunstens og musikkens verden. Men som så mange andre kunstnere får jeg i særdeleshed meget ud af at rejse og møde andre kulturer. Det er, som om at alle sanserne skærpes, mens man er på udebane, og man ser på alt med fornyet interesse. It’s all around us.

be unfolded in so many ways that make it relevant. In my work I explore how to visually involve the viewer in the piece. One of the ways I do this is through my installation-like staging of painting. I invite the viewer to experience a sense of unity where the communications of various influences interweave. I have an idea that the distance between viewer and piece is broken down when the painting is no longer confined by a frame but instead enters into the space around it, and when, as a viewer, it becomes necessary for you to move around within this space. AK: Where do you find your inspiration? TB. I’m a bit like a sponge absorbing everything around me. I’m constantly seeing new connections between different things which don’t necessarily belong together. I photograph quite a lot of what I come across and use these images as models. A painting is often shaped from the observations and records I’ve collected. It’s often what surrounds us that I’m interested in, such as architecture; it tells us of history, of time and place, and creates the environments we operate in. At the same time I’m also fascinated by odd details like things that have lost their function or have simply been abandoned. The world of things held up against the intangible has always been an area of interest to me. I’ve been looking at the Baroque quite a bit, at its philosophies of eternity, because I find the thoughts and ideas of the period inspiring. It seems to me that when these notions are brought into our time, they still appear relevant. A film like Gravity from 2013, by the Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, where the depiction of vast infinite space puts both the fear and the attractiveness of indefinable perpetuity into perspective, is similarly inspiring. The extended moment where everything quivers, before it shatters into a thousand pieces, changes its shape and becomes something else. I also have many references and sources of inspiration from both art and music. But like so many other artists I particularly get a lot out of travelling and meeting other cultures. It’s as if all your senses are sharpened when you are away, and you look at everything with renewed interest. It’s all around us.

WANDERLUST – SILENZIO 120 × 110 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

WANDERLUST – OTHER SPACES 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

WANDERLUST – THE REST 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

New Resort, Trapholt Installation view, painted walls and floor WANDERLUST – OTHER SPACES 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST – THE REST. 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

New Resort, Trapholt Installation view, painted walls and floor GREY SCALE – CLOSER 90 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 SPACE ODYSSEY I 200 × 300 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2011 GREY SCALE SERIES Varied sizes, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST – OTHER SPACES 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST – THE REST 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST- SILENZIO 120 × 110 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

New Resort, Trapholt Installation view, painted walls and floor GREY SCALE SERIES 1-4 Varied sizes, acrylic and pencil on canvas,â&#x20AC;¨2014

GREY SCALE – WISHING WELL 90 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

GREY SCALE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 18 110 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

GREY SCALE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; TRASH 66 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

GREY SCALE – CHINA IN BERLIN 78 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

GREY SCALE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; CLOSER 90 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

UFO I 120 × 110 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2013

UFO / URO 120 × 95 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2013

UFO V 120 × 95 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2013

UFO III 120 × 110 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2013

New Resort, Trapholt, installation view ALTING BLINKER â&#x20AC;&#x201C; NR. 2, 5, 3, 4, 6 & 8 50 cm (diameter), collage/mixed media on paper, 2012

ALTING BLINKER, NR. 8 50 cm (diameter), collage/mixed media on paper, 2012

ALTING BLINKER, NR. 4 50 cm (diameter), collage/mixed media on paper, 2012

ALTING BLINKER, NR. 5 50 cm (diameter), collage/mixed media on paper, 2012

ALTING BLINKER, NR. 1 50 cm (diameter), collage/mixed media on paper, 2012

ANOTHER PL ACE

DEN FRIE

Et andet sted/Another place, Den Frie Installation view, acrylic and pencil on wall MAP I 122 Ă&#x2014; 244 cm, acrylic and pencil on wooden board, 2013 MAP II 122 Ă&#x2014; 244 cm, acrylic and pencil on wooden board, 2013

Et andet sted/Another place, Den Frie Installation view, acrylic and pencil on wall, 2013

Et andet sted/Another place, Den Frie Installation view, acrylic and pencil on wall, detail, 2013 MAP II 122 Ă&#x2014; 244 cm, acrylic and pencil on wooden board, 2013

Et andet sted/Another place, Den Frie Installation view, acrylic and pencil on wall, detail, 2013

Et andet sted/Another place, Den Frie Installation view, acrylic and pencil on wall, 2013 MAP I 122 Ă&#x2014; 244 cm, acrylic and pencil on wooden board, 2013 MAP II 122 Ă&#x2014; 244 cm, acrylic and pencil on wooden board, 2013

FROM SURFACE TO SPACE

INSTALL ATIONS

Maleri uden grænser, Esbjerg Museum of Contemporary Art Installation view, painted wall, 2006 EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE 180 × 160 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2006

Measuring Space, KANT Installation view, painted walls and floor, 2014

A BIT OF THE SKY 50 × 60 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2014

WANDERLUST – OTHER SPACES 150 × 135 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014 WANDERLUST – SILENZIO. 120 × 110 cm, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

Measuring Space, KANT Installation view, painted walls and floor, 2014 GREY SCALE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; WISHING WELL 90 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2014

World Without End, Vejle Museum of Art, 2009 Installation view, painted walls and floor TOURIST GHETTO 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2009 GOLDEN GARBAGE 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2007 BOUNCING ON CLOUDS 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2009 MACHINE 190 × 215 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2006 WE ARE REALLY CATS 190 × 190cm acrylic on canvas, 2005

næste opslag/next spread World Without End, Vejle Museum of Art, 2009 Installation view, painted walls and floor TOURIST GHETTO 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2009 GOLDEN GARBAGE 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2007 BOUNCING ON CLOUDS 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2009

BOUNCING ON CLOUDS 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2009

TOURIST GHETTO 150 × 190 cm, acrylic, pencil and glitter on canvas, 2009

Installation view, painted wall, 2012 SOMETHING GOLDEN 110 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2012 Site specific work/HĂŚvdholm & Stausholm

ET FRISK PUST FRA KOSMOS/A FRESH WIND FROM COSMOS Til vĂŚgs, Kunsthal Charlottenborg Installation view, painted wall, 2009

Everything is Blinking, Beaver Projects Installation view, painted wall, 2012 VERTIGO 65 cm (diameter), acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2012

Installation view, painted wall, 2011 THE LAW (VS. J. ROBERTS) 90 cm (diameter), acrylic, pencil, stickers and airbrush on canvas, 2011 Site specific work/Horten Law Firm

TRINE BOESEN

CURRICULUM VITAE

TRINE BOESEN Lives and works in Copenhagen/Denmark

2013

EDUCATION 1997-2002 The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen

Winther exhibition 13/14, KANT. Copenhagen/DK P OWERKVINDER – når kunsten flytter grænser, Vejle Museum of Art. Vejle/DK ZEIGEN, Nikolaj Kunsthal. Copenhagen/DK Stedet er rummet, Den Frie. Copenhagen/DK Fanatiske Rum, Maskinfabrikken. Køge/DK

1995-1997 The Jutland Academy of Fine Arts, Aarhus

2012

Summer’s nearly gone, Beaver Projects. Copenhagen/DK Sommer koks, Gallerie MøllerWitt. Aarhus/DK

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (Selected) 2014 New Resort, Trapholt. Kolding/DK Measuring Space, KANT. Copenhagen/DK

2011 Psych-out, Holstebro Kunstmuseum. Holstebro/DK Op mod 2012, Gallerie MøllerWitt. Aarhus/DK Third Party, Beaver Projects. Copenhagen/DK

2013

2010

Format #2, Format Artspace. Copenhagen/DK UFO, Gallerie MøllerWitt. Aarhus/DK

2012 Everything is Blinking, Beaver Projects. Copenhagen/DK Alting Blinker, Permild & Rosengreens projektrum. Copenhagen/DK 2011 House of Odd, Gallerie MøllerWitt. Solo show. Aarhus/DK 2009

World Without End, Vejle Museum of Art. Vejle/DK

2007

Strange Days, Vane Contemporary Art. Newcastle/UK

2006

iss Blacky White and the Anthills, Mogadishni. M Copenhagen/DK Sahst du nach dem Gewitterregen den Wald ?!?!, Fiebach & Minninger. Cologne/DE

2005

Hej Society, Aarhus Art Building. Aarhus/DK

2004 Solitude Standing in the Urban Jungle, Fiebach & Minninger. Cologne/DE Flowers Crack Concrete, Mogadishni. Copenhagen/DK 2003

Watching You, I-20 Gallery. New York/USA

2002 Electric Lotion, Mogadishni. Copenhagen/DK Traffic in My Mind, The Exhibition Space. Copenhagen/ DK GROUP 2014

EXHIBITIONS (Selected) 1000 timer, Trapholt. Kolding/DK Kunsten besøger Brandts, Brandts. Odense/DK Drawing Now – Paris, KANT. Paris/France On a Thin Line, Galleri Kirk. Aalborg/DK Drømmeland, Kunsten. Aalborg/DK

Second Party, Beaver Projects. Copenhagen/DK Things that matter a lot, Galleri Christoffer Egelund. Copenhagen/DK Reservedele, Øksnehallen. Copenhagen/DK Leporello, Politikens hus. Copenhagen/DK The Mentor Show, LARMgalleri. Copenhagen/DK

2009 A Broken Frame, Gallerie MøllerWitt. Aarhus/DK Til vægs, Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Copenhagen/DK Human/Nature/Machine, WAS – Wonderland Art Space. Copenhagen/DK Edition Copenhagen Retrospektiv, Den Frie. Copenhagen/ DK The Party, Beaver Projects. Copenhagen/DK 2008

Art Brussels, Brussel/BE Botanisk forvandling, Vejle Museum of Art. Vejle/DK

2007 Match Race, Nordjyllands Museum of Art. Aalborg/DK Salon, Lauritz Kunsthal. Copenhagen/DK Girlpower & Boyhood, Continued. Sølvberget. Stavanger/ NO Ordinary Fantastic, Milliken Gallery. Stockholm/SE Liste07, Basel/CH From Denmark to Berlin, Artnews Project. Berlin/DE 2006 Girlpower & Boyhood, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh/UK and Brandts, Odense/DK Maleri uden grænser, Esbjerg Art Museum. Esbjerg/DK Malerhjerne!, Arken Museum of Modern Art. Ishøj/DK Maleriets 11 hjørner, Sophienholm/DK Fiction@love-ultra new Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art/Shanghai and 18 Creative Center/ Singapore/CN 2005

Danske Drømme, Transit Art Space. Stavanger/NO Wonderland, It’s Beautiful, Kunsthaus Baselland/CH Fresh start, Santa Monica Studios. Los Angeles/USA

2004

Groupshow, Mogadishni. Valby/DK Freeze, Agenzia 04. Bologna/IT Modlys og andre overvindelige forhindringer, Bornholms Kunsthal. Bornholm/DK

2003

Double life, Gallery 404. Naples/IT

2002

Private view, Fiebach & Minninger. Cologne/DE ABSHCIEDSKONZERT, Galleri Tom Christoffersen. Copenhagen/DK EXIT, Kunstforeningen Gl Strand. Copenhagen/DK

2001 Malerei, Enja Wonneberger Gallery. Kiel/DE Liste Art Fair, Enja Wonneberger. Basel/CH Nede hos slagteren, Butcher Store. Copenhagen/DK Sidste skrig, Galleri Søren Houmann. Copenhagen/DK 2000 Konnektor, Pfefferberg. Berlin/DE Lille og bange, Galleri Peblinc. Copenhagen/DK GRANTS 2014 The Danish Arts Foundation The New Carlsberg Foundation 2013 The Danish Arts Foundation Beckett-Foundation Aage and Yelva Nimbs Foundation (Grant of honor) 2011 The Danish Arts Foundation 2009 Foundation of 1973 (Grant of honor) 2007 The Danish Arts Foundation 2006 The Danish Arts Council 2006 Hielmstierne-Rosencronerske Foundation’s Travel Grant 2005 The Danish Arts Foundation 2005 Ragnvald & Ida Blix’ Foundation 2004 The Danish Arts Council The Danish Arts Foundation 2003 The Danish Arts Foundation, The Danish Arts Council 2002 Frøken Marie Månsson’s Grant

COMMISIONS Lærestandens Brandforsikring AVK, DK Hævdholm & Stausholm, DK Horten, Hellerup, DK Novo Nordisk, DK Roskilde University Centre, building 25, DK Nykredit, DK Naturgas Fyn, DK CATALOUGES AND PUBLICATIONS Psych-out. Psykedelisk samtidskunst. Published by Holstebro Kunstmuseums Forlag. DK 2011. Leporello. Morten Søkilde/Trine Boesen. Published by Arena-Dottir. DK 2010. Til Vægs. Published by Kunsthal Charlottenborg. DK 2009. Match Race. Published by Nordjyllands Art Museum. DK 2007. Trine Boesen – Paintings. Uta Grosenick and Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg. Published by Trine Boesen. DK 2006. Ny-brud. Rune Gade, Camilla Jarlving. Published by Aschehoug. DK 2006. Overblik, 63 danske samtidskunstnere. Michael Jeppesen. Published by Politikens Forlag. DK 2006. Girlpower & Boyhood. Barry Schwabsky, Lisbeth Bonde, Lene Burkhard, Pat Fischer and Karsten Ohrt. Published by Kunsthallen Brandts and Talbot Rice Gallery. DK 2006. Bulletin. Published by Arken. DK 2006. Maleriets elleve hjørner. Julie Damgaard, Helle Ryberg. Published by Lyngby Kunstforening. DK 2006. Fiction@Love. Catalogue in connection to the exhibition Fiction@ Love, Shanghai/CN 2006. Indblik - kunst i Nykredit. Teddy Josephsen, Marie Christine Jacobi, Lisbeth Tarp. Published by Nykredit. DK 2006. Danske Drømme. Lisbeth Bonde. Published by Stavanger International Collection. NO 2005. Wonderland – It’s Beautiful. Sabine Schaschl-Cooper, Kristine Kern, Simon Bauer. Published by Kunsthaus Baselland. CH 2005.

COLLECTIONS Ny Carlsberg Foundation, DK Trapholt, DK Vejle Museum of Art, DK Nordjyllands Museum of Art, DK ARoS Aarhus Museum of Modern Art, DK Nykredit, DK Kastrupgaard Collection, DK Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, USA Michael Nachmann, New York, USA Albert Liersy Collection, USA

TRINE BOESEN FROM SURFACE TO SPACE

Published by: Trine Boesen Texts: Anne Ring Petersen, Anna Krogh Translation: Sophie Pucill Danish and English Proofreading: Sophie Pucill (English), Louise Urth Olsen (Danish) Art Direction: Dan Eggers Photographers: Anders Sune Berg, Leá Nielsen, Peter Misfelt, Peter Boel, Jydske Vestkysten/Ludvig Dittmann Portrait photo: Jonas Lodahl Printed by: Aka Print, Århus Paper: Artic Volume White Typography: Brandon Grotesque, Fiesole Text Print copies: 1,000 ISBN: 978-87-997888-0-4

Frontcover: The Grand Cabinet (detail) Backcover: The Grand Cabinet (detail)

Special thanks to my husband Jon Ulrik Busk Laursen and my daughter Carla Busk Boesen

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