Abbas Akhavan, Curtain Call, Copenhagen Contemporary and Glyptoteket, Copenhagen
The year that is now drawing to a close marked two rather terrible anniversaries as regards the world’s cultural heritage. Ten years have gone by since the destruction of the triumphal arch in Palmyra, and twenty years have passed since the looting of the national museum in Baghdad. Enacted as a collaboration between Copenhagen Contemporary and the Glyptotek, Iranian artist Abbas Akhavan recreated both scenarios with full-size replicas using the ancient natural building material cob set against chroma key-green backdrops. Here visitors could walk around inside the smashed museum and wonder where the Assyrian lion sculpture might be today, or ponder how the video of the explosions in Palmyra is circulated in mass media as well as in propaganda – and in new art.
Irma Hünerfauth, Speaking Boxes, Simian, Copenhagen
I could lose myself for hours in German artist Irma Hünerfauth’s (1907–1998) small and utterly mysterious acrylic glass boxes in Simian gallery’s solo show, which brought together the series of works for the first time ever since the artist’s death. These exquisite and detailed compositions made from the detritus of consumer society were so delicately put together that they looked like complex mechanical worlds, underwater realms, or perhaps set design models for plays we will never get to see. Some were pseudo-machines that could be set in motion while others could sing or speak to us with the artist’s own voice. A completely unique body of work.
Ahmed Umar, Glowing Phalanges, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo
If some feel that we have reached a snapping point for art based on very personal stories, it is perhaps because they have not come across Norwegian Sudanese Ahmed Umar. At the exhibition in Oslo, he took his point of departure in his upbringing, poised between two different versions of Islam and the quite different religious practices associated with them. Using materials derived from commercial African souvenirs, he created a series of objects so delectable and tactile that I could hardly keep my fingers off them, all while telling a complex story about cultural values, religion, and owning one’s own history.
Louise Steiwer was substitute editor for the Danish edition of Kunstkritikk during most of 2023 and has now returned to being a regular writer for the magazine. She lives in Copenhagen and spends half her life in Paris.
For this year’s contributions to the Advent Calendar, see here.
