ON SOURCE: LOUISIANA MUSEUM
LOUISIANA MUSEUM: OCEAN
Dreams and nightmares, longing and anxiety, beauty and horror: OCEAN is the big Louisiana event of the season. A journey of discovery above and below the surface, where history and the present meet in an intersection between art and science.
The exhibition is generously supported by Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond and Det Obelske Familiefond. It is endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the oceans that cover more than 70% of our own planet. But the more we dive below the surface, the more incredible things seem to emerge. And in the realm of our imagination, we are literally flooded with images, stories and fantastic creatures.
Anna Atkins, cyanotopi, 1843
We humans, like all other life, come from the sea, which we both fear and long for. In antiquity, the philosopher Plato wrote that 'we live around the sea like ants or frogs around about a pond.' But despite our own insignificant size, our influence can now be traced everywhere in the world's oceans.
J.C. Dahl, Søstykke med et vrag, 1831
Thus, the oceans are no longer just a reservoir for our collective imaginations of gods, monsters and fairy tales. To a large extent, they have become a gigantic junkyard and a resource that is being exploited to the max.
Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Horizontal Thoughts (study), 1970-71. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Erhvervet med midler fra Augustinus Fonden
OCEAN is conceived as a large, thematic exhibition, where myths, history and the present merge. And where art, culture and science meet. The exhibition will take up the entire South Wing of the museum and consist of three general themes: 1) The ocean between art and science, 2) The sublime and mythological ocean and 3) The anthropocene ocean.
Olaus Magnus, Carta Marina, 1539 (udsnit).
INTO THE DEEP
The exhibition opens with an exploration of art and cultural objects that lie at the crossroads between aesthetics and science, e.g. in the form of Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes of seaweed, Emilija Škarnulytė’s art film from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, or Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka’s incredible glass models of marine invertebrates.
Ellen Gallagher, Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, 2024
MYTHS AND EXPLOITATION
The sublime and mythological ocean (second theme) revolves around the emotions and ideas that arise in art when man is confronted with the unknown. From statues of ancient gods and heroes that have lain 2,000 years on the seabed in the so-called Antikythera shipwreck, to the sublime sea surface as depicted in e.g. Peder Balke, August Strindberg and Susan Hiller. From visions of strange monsters in Japanese woodcuts to mythologies around merpeople, descending from enslaved Africans in the works of Ellen Gallagher and El Anatsui.
John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea, 2015
In the exhibition’s final theme, the anthropocene ocean, ideas and notions of exploration and enchantment are replaced by accounts and interpretations of man’s exploitation of the oceans. Here, for example, the ocean as an intensely trafficated highway is depicted by Alan Sekula and Nina Beier and as a stage for the destruction of cultures and the environment by e.g. John Akomfrah.
Wolfgang Tillmans, Louisiana, 1996. Farveprint monteret på Dibond. Erhvervet med midler fra Augustinus Fonden
OCEAN brings together works by a series of acclaimed artists, both historical and contemporary: John Akomfrah, Anna Atkins, Peder Balke, Nina Beier, Jeanette Ehlers, Caspar David Friedrich, Ellen Gallagher, Susan Hiller, Pierre Huyghe, Kirsten Justesen, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Niceaunties, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jean Painlevé, Howardena Pindell, Pipilotti Rist, Allan Sekula, Emilija Škarnulytė, August Strindberg, Superflex, Wolfgang Tillmans, Yuyan Wang as well as Francesca Woodman
The exhibition follows in the footsteps of a series of thematic Louisiana exhibitions such as The Arctic (2013) and The Moon (2018).
This exhibition is endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development as a Decade Activity. For more information
Presentation of Emilija Škarnulytė’s work Aphotic Zone with support from:
ON SOURCE: LOUISIANA MUSEUM