sculpture

SCULPTURE:

And the Forests Dream Eternally

A solo exhibition by Rose Eken

A sublime darkness has fallen upon Rose Eken’s habitually bright and playful visual universe; step through the looking glass and emerge in a parallel world of sensual beauty and abyssal horror. The artist’s fifth solo exhibition with V1 Gallery / Eighteen transforms the white cube of Eighteen into an occult forest – here amid the gloomy silhouettes of naked tree trunks, we stumble upon a strange clearing, in which a surreal tableau seemingly unfolds.

Ever the maverick medium between disparate worlds, Eken assembles a dramatic and empowering anti-mythos, adding her voice to a Zeitgeist of speculation, mysticism and spirituality spreading across our cultural landscape. Modern witchcraft and paganism delves into forgotten, often feminine, knowledge of nature and life, while new wave black metal seeks to amend its old habits of church-burning vandalism and problematic politics. Hence, a new generation of practitioners tirelessly mines the past, present and future for new and more sustainable modes of belonging. Like the witches and priestesses of yore, Eken conducts such spells and rituals through her artistic practice. The modern world may be profane and desolate, yet art holds the means of its re-enchantment.

Excerpt from text by Astrid Wang

NOTES ON A DARKER ROSE by Heine Hansen

Ceramic Love Songs

Eros Unlimited, Eighteen 2020

In Greek mythology, Eros is the son of Aphrodite, representing the erotic dimension of love. In Pla- to’s Symposion, he is rendered a somewhat abstract concept, expressing the desire to create and procreate, to extend our lives and selves in the material world. Compelling us to revisit this con- tested notion, particularly in the light of a global pandemic and great social and natural upheaval, Ceramic Love Songs presents an open-ended exploration of love, desire, sexual embodiment and eroticism through the perspective of Rose Eken.

Well-known for her meticulous still life objects in clay, Rose Eken presents a refreshingly punk take on the theme of Eros, exploring earthenware’s archaic function as vessels and carriers. Various jars, vases, bowls and containers recall antique artifacts but are glazed with lyrics from contem- porary pop songs. On one phallus-shaped vessel, PJ Harvey wonders whether desire is enough (Is This Desire, 2020). Others carry vignettes of disembodied hands wringing themselves, signing, and holding lifeless birds, evoking the death of innocence by the hand of love. Together, they make for a fragmented narrative of shipwrecked romances as well as a collection of fetish objects – testaments to the inseparability of physical and immaterial love.

Text by Astrid Wang

Now You’ll Never See Me Cry 2020

AFTERBEAT

Horsens Art Museum 2018
‘…The working practice of the Danish visual artist Rose Eken (b. 1976) recalls comprehensive field studies in culture, history, memory and perception by an ethnographer. Spotting the potential of the immediate and the available, Rose Eken offers unique insights into our popular culture and the times we live in. Wit, personality and an acute eye for details are characteristic of her works and installations. They pique our curiosity and speak to most people. Afterbeat is Rose Eken’s first solo exhibition in a Danish museum and as the title suggests it is music culture that is the object of the artistic work here’…
by Henriette Noermark from the catalogue AFTERBEAT – read entire essay here: The Notion of The Crowd

RESISTANCE 2018

‘Slingshots, bolts and steel bearings, empty champagne bottles converted to Molotov cocktails, burner phones, balaclavas, cobblestones, spray cans, Keffiyeh scarfs, Dr. Martens boots, knuckle dusters, barbed wire, working gloves, an assortment of bats, pepper spray, a police scanner, a selection of folding knives, a crowbar, gasmask, lemons, busts of Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg, plyers, bolt cutters, a megaphone, flyers, the S.C.U.M Manifest, The Anarchist Cook book, The Process by Franz Kafka, poetry books by Michael Strunge, vinyl records from Rage Against The Machine, Iggy Pop and Nina Hagen Band, Boys Don’t Cry and Never Mind the Bollocks on cassette tapes. Tools for resistance and revolution, all created in clay for Rose Eken’s immersive new exhibition Resistance.’

PRESS RELEASE