finding surprises in your own neighborhood

a most amazing experience today. one which proves that you can still discover something which will inspire you and make you think, within 20 minutes of your home, after a decade of living here. christina saw a program on DR this week, with gardener søren rye, who visited a place called skovsnogen, out near kibæk, where a guy has put up all sorts of art in the forest around his home over some years and it's open to the public to wander through, for only the price of a free-will offering. there is a huge variety of art, from things that look like maybe stalin ordered them, to the namesake skovsnogen, which is a winding wooden snake that's painted bright yellow and which you can crawl around inside, to a brick wall that spells out HATE and which was built in 2011, before trump made a wall of hate his trademark. it was so powerful to come upon this in the forest, to able to climb on it and walk through it.

another powerful work was what i would call the ildsjæl - a golden woman's head, where her hair was sticking upright, like a flame, atop a stylized fire pyramid. She had a peaceful, beatific look on her face, her eyes closed, not the least disturbed by her position the pyre. there was a bench where you could sit and look at her. The more you looked, the more you were affected by her peacefulness with her situation. There was something of the buddha over her, with that zen attitude over what was arguably her plight. but perhaps there was a message in it that it wasn't a plight at all, but freedom and a relief. some small boys came and exclaimed to their parents, "look, mom, it's a fire person - ildmenneske." that's exactly what she was. as we walked away to leave the experience to them, i remarked the she was an ildsjæl, and gave myself goosebumps.

i had moments where i wished we had the place to ourselves. there were many cars there, thanks to an appearance this week on DR, but once you were out, walking the trails, there was decent space between people. though at times, i wished we had more time there for ourselves. and i definitely wished that some of the whining kids that were there weren't there, which made me feel a little old and crabby. but, it was because it was such a striking, intense experience, and i wanted to savor it and that was difficult when there were people crowding up from behind.

there was a huge gong out the trees in one spot. we were recording it, and experiencing the reverberations, and a family came up behind us, chattering away. we definitely wished we'd had it to ourselves.

there were two uncanny figures which were in the vein of our exhibition last year. they were so striking the forest, and only slightly spoiled by an older couple with politiken glasses on, saying, "er det her virkelig kunst," (probably in more correct grammar than that) in a very snotty way. we felt a bit sorry for them with their snobbish view of the world, unable to give themselves over to the experience, needing to hold on to judgements in the face of a world that's changing and where those judgements may be falling away and the world becoming something else.

it will be interesting to see what kind of art arises out there, after corona. maybe christina and i should try to make some, as a reaction to this experience we are in. what would it look like? it would surely be uncanny in some sense. and surprising and unexpected. and it might be frightening and anxiety-causing, but it might also be a relief and somehow freeing.

it's so hard to know the affect this whole experience is going to have, when we are right in the middle of it. but to figure it out through art and in harmony with another artist or artists, and the landscape, could be the very best way to process it - in words and paint and things which hang from the trees.

one thing that was so interesting was that there weren't any artist names or names of the works anywhere visible in the forest, you had to just experience the works for yourself, figuring out what they said to you and only you, through your direct experience of them and the feelings that they gave to you, or the echoes they sounded of your lived experience - like a little hut up on stilts that made me think of Baba Yaga and which made Christina think about whether the hut or the nature around it came first. a thought-provoking experience for both of us, but a very different experience for each of us as well.

it also seemed like a place where you'd want to go on an artist's retreat. to sit in the brutalist shelter, light a fire and settle down to some writing. or to wander among the trees, capturing the sounds of the birds and wind and the leaves. or whether you'd want to record yourself reciting a poem you'd written, or a favorite poem in the amazing acoustics of the metal ball that's all alone, unexpectedly, in the middle of a field.

it definitely won't be my last visit.

the winter (and the service) that wasn't

i was driving a small back road today, just for a change of pace and unexpectedly came upon the tørskind grusgrav sculpture park. we've been there before, so it shouldn't have been so unexpected. i was just coming at it from the other way, so i didn't realize i was on that road. it's dramatic enough, being out there in the middle of nowhere, but there was something even more dramatic about it on this dreary, snowy, tho' now drizzling rain, melting fast sort of a day (it seems real winter will never come this year). it also helped the drama that there wasn't anyone else there. i did make this picture black & white in iPhoto, but i very nearly didn't need to, as the scene itself was quite starkly black and white.

i tried to go to the tax office, new contract in hand, to file the changes to my taxes for the coming year and i found out that they do not allow visits anymore. you can actually no longer talk to a real, live person who works for the danish tax authorities in person without a letter from god. one of the nice employees came to the door as i was standing there, reading their microscopic sign, bewildered at the concept. she all but admitted that it was quite ridiculous. she said i could call and have someone help me on the phone. i asked if anyone would really answer and she said, "if you're lucky." i suppose it's a money-saving measure to save on actually staffing the tax offices with qualified people who are able to answer your questions. if you can just have a couple of phone answerers trained to do that, then you've undoubtedly saved a lot of money. but i find it yet another example of the utterly dismal attitude towards being service-minded in this country.  and it's rather disappointing because we do indeed pay an awful lot of tax.

hey big nose: the sculpture of leif grønhøj

stræberen (the seeker) by leif grønhøj

one of the pleasant surprises on the guided sculpture walk was that one of the artists was there himself! it was just coincidence that we actually finished up the tour looking at his pieces. i'd been walking along with him and his wife and talking with them about the other pieces all along and was pleased to find out he was one of the artists himself! his works are placed together in a grouping of 5 and tho' they weren't created together, they make for a very interesting and harmonious grouping.

stræberen (the seeker) by leif grønhøj

the artist was leif grønhøj, a sculptor from aalborg. you can see more of his work here. you may recognize this one from yesterday's crabby post.

anybody by leif grønhøj

he was in town because he had to repair one of the sculptures - this one called anybody. the danger of having art out in the open, where anyone can access it, is that people can get strange ideas. apparently someone decided to play football with mr. anybody and his left ear and eyebrow were damaged in the process.

anybody by leif grønhøj

leif was able to use the stone itself to make the repairs and you couldn't see at all where the damage had been. one consequence is that now mr. anybody is glued to his bronze pin that holds him to his base. leif doesn't normally glue the pieces, as they're more transportable if you can lift them off the base for transport, but in this case, where the pieces stand near a busy street in the center of town, they're simply too tempting and small enough to lift, so they had to be glued.

vogter I & II (guardian I & II) by leif grønhøj

our enthusiastic tour guide was telling a lively tale of what the guardians spent their time talking about. he did an awesome job of bringing the works to life. it was the best two hours i've spent in a long time.

big nose by leif grønhøj

leif described how the faces are simply there in the stone and he just coaxes them out. he said that big nose just had a big nose and it wasn't anything he really had control of - it was the way he was, there within the stone.

vogter I (guardian I) by leif grønhøj

he also talked a lot about the bases and how for him they are an integral part of the pieces, but that people often ask him about them and either love them or hate them. i though they were the perfect base for showing off the works. he also said he uses bronze pins to hold them up, as other metals would soon rust and color off onto the stone.

big nose by leif grønhøj

it was so interesting to listen to the artist talk about the various techniques and tools he uses to get different effects - polishers, small jackhammers and such. i love gathering stones on the beach, but haven't really considered looking for what characters lurk within.

vogter II (guardian II) by leif grønhøj

stone is such a marvelous material, living somehow, tho' cold and impassive at the same time. looking at these pieces, with their weird features and expressions, i definitely felt that they had indeed been lurking there in the stone all along, just waiting for leif to coax them out.

anybody by leif grønhøj (and that IS leif grønhøj on the right)

i wonder if future archaeologists will find such pieces and think we worshipped strange big-nosed gods or gazed towards the stars. and it makes me wonder if archaeologists read too much into what was just artistic expression in the idols and figures uncovered today.

one more shot of big nose by leif grønhøj

if you wanted to buy all five pieces, at the current exchange rate, they would run you $19,235 (116,000DKK). not quite bill's $25,000 = real art, but in my opinion, real art nonetheless. if you just wanted big nose (like i kinda do), he'll run you $3,814 (23,000DKK).

an outdoor art gallery

Væksttræet (The Tree of Growth) by Lithuanian artist Zilvinas P. Augustenas

Stjernekigger (Stargazer) by Japanese artist Koichi Ichiwata

Fragment by Erling Janum

Hjertekammer (Heart Chamber) by Niels Pedersen

Madonna by Liné Ringtved Thordarson

Selvomsorg (Self Sympathy) by Liné Ringtved Thordarson

Tanker (Thoughts) by Thomas Højsholm

Sky Boat by Bo Karberg

Give, the little town where i live (yes, i live in a town called give), is an outdoor art gallery, featuring 60 sculptures, which are placed all around the town. most of them are for sale, tho' some have become so loved by those who saw them regularly that they were purchased by groups or individuals in order to keep them here. i went on a guided tour yesterday, which was wonderful!  our guide was most knowledgable and enthusiastic.

tho' i think in many ways, art is what you make of it yourself, in your own head and heart, it brought the works alive for me to hear the stories behind their creation and go a little bit deeper into their intended meanings.  i'll be sharing more photos over the next few days.

in the same boat

there are these moments, not moments of perfect clarity exactly, because those are something else, but moments where you suddenly, out of nowhere are able to take in, just for a second, The Enormity of Things. i had one the other day when we took a load of books and things to the house. i had unpacked them onto a shelf so we could take the boxes back home to load again and it suddenly hit me, in all of its fullness, exactly how much work we had to do on the house before it would be as we want it. luckily, it only lasted a second, because otherwise i would have just gone mad from the enormity of it.

i had a similar flash of The Enormity of Things today on the train, when i looked up and saw a strange, goofy, awkward man looking at me. you know how you can feel someone looking at you sometimes? and i tweeted something uncharitable about how i had forgotten about weirdos on the public transport. and then i was suddenly hit by the feeling of how everyone is really just trying to get on with their life in their own way. and our paths cross or they don't, but we're all just living along, inside of ourselves, trying to make our way. and the enormity of all of us going along, living, was just THERE for a second. and then it passed. thankfully most of the time our minds protect us from that knowledge of The Enormity of Things. i think if it didn't, we'd just be paralyzed, unable to move. just sitting here frozen, but in the same boat.

i wonder what it is about right now that's making me susceptible to these gateways of my mind...

set in stone

back on may 1, which turned out to be a holiday and i was stuck in norway because That Girl booked my tickets all wrong, i used my time wisely and went to the wonderful Vigeland Park in the center of the city. it features 200+ bronze and granite statues, all done by Gustav Vigeland (at least the the clay originals--craftsmen actually did the carving and casting) in the early part of the 20th century.

for me, many of them had the larger-than-life feel of the depictions of New Soviet Man and Woman prevalent in the same period in the early soviet union. i'm sure there are many who would balk at that description, looking back as we do through the distorted lens of history, but i do think there's something of it in some of the work. but perhaps even the soviet sculptors were capturing a general zeitgeist.

most fascinating to me were the depictions of children together with their parents (presumably that's who those adults were). they are at once frozen and yet there is a sense of movement in them, like maybe you just blinked at the wrong moment and missed it, but it's still lingering in the air.

it was a gorgeous spring day and the sculpture provoked many thoughts that day. there's just something about good sculpture--it's at once static and moving, solid yet fluid, warm and lifelike yet cold. when it's really good, it captures the dynamic of life--the dichotomies and opposites present in us all.

i think that's what speaks to you from good sculpture..although it's quite literally set in stone, there is life and movement and fluidity.  there's that sense that if you blink you'll miss the movement. i feel it reminding me to be ever watchful, not to miss a thing--in life as in sculpture. to try to capture the moments and hold them in memory, although memory is more porous than stone or bronze, it doesn't really stop us from trying does it?

note:  if you're thinking that i skipped the monolith, which is perhaps the most famous one, you're right, but i'm saving it for another post.