One Hundred and One Pieces of a Tree (Norwegian Wood)
November 15, 2019–March 15, 2020
Henrik Håkansson (b. 1968) has worked with questions relating to our natural environment in large multi-media installations for a greater part of his artistic career.
KODE Art Museums of Bergen launches a site-specific installation by the Swedish artist, who has created a work that is literally rooted in the nature of Western Norway. The tree is an alder that the artist himself has selected from Isdalen located in the Bergen area. The tree and its roots have been dried out and then dissected into a hundred and one different pieces.
Click to see the promo video for the exhibition
Scientific disciplines
Throughout his long career, Håkansson has worked with trees, plants, earth and insects—thereby blurring the dividing line between the exhibition space and nature. By allowing nature to play the leading role, juxtaposing the viewer and nature, Håkansson’s work creates unexpected and disquieting results.
Håkansson makes use of methods that often resemble the systematic nature observations used in scientific disciplines, such as dissection and close-up images, while simultaneously emphasising both order and disorder. He addresses our complex relationship to nature, not only in relation to ethics and ecology, but also how nature has been defined by art and science in past centuries.
About the artist
Håkansson has a long international career extending back to the mid-1990s. He has participated in the Biennale of Sydney (2014), the Berlin Biennale (2001), twice in the Venice Biennale (1997, 2003), and had solo exhibitions at De Appel in Amsterdam (2003), Lunds konsthall (2012), Kunsthalle Basel (1999) and Moderna Museet (2003), to name just a few.
About the museum
KODE is one of the largest museums for art, craft, design and music in the Nordic countries. Situated in Bergen, Norway, with collections spanning from the Renaissance to Contemporary Art. KODE holds more than 43,000 works, including world class collections of Edvard Munch and Nikolai Astrup, as well as several composer homes including Edvard Grieg’s Troldhaugen.
Program
Friday, November 15, 7pm: Vernissage in The Tower Room, KODE Art Museum
