THE ARTIST AS AN ARTWORK
MAY 6 – JUNE 5 2017
KRISTIAN SVERDRUP
Kunsthal NORD has invited Kristian Sverdrup to create a research-based and site-specific exhibition, in which science becomes art and art becomes embodied. The experimental sculptor has undertaken several research projects aimed at creating a number of sculptures, reliefs and paintings based on the many microscopies, electrophysiological measurements, biopsies, ultrasound and 3D scans that his body has been the subject of.
Thereby, Kristian Sverdrup turns himself into an art object – however, in an extraordinary, abstracted and digitized version – and, by doing so, challenges the classic form of self-portraits. He expresses it as follows: "My goal is to create an in-depth, research-related self-portrait, where, on the basis of my own personal research-related data, I dig deeply on a molecular, cellular plane."
Kristian Sverdrup graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 and is the country's only academically educated sculptor with hereditary spastic paraplegia and the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. He has participated in a number of national and international exhibitions, such as Open Space at Art Cologne, Frac Centre Orleans, Kunsthalle Wien, Den Frie, Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum and Gl. Strand. A few months ago, he received the prestigious Viggo Jarl honorary legacy.
See or download the exhibition catalogue here
The exhibition is supported by Statens Kunstfond, Statens Værksteder for Kunst, Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fond, Knud Højgaard Fonden, Poul Johansens Fonden, Det Obelske Familiefond, Elsass Fonden, MTM BYG and Aalborg Kommune.