Exhibition Description
NEW POSITIONS
2021-2022 Edition
April 29 – June 4, 2022
View images | Visit our Artsy page to purchase works
Simone DeSousa Gallery in collaboration with the Danish Arts Foundation is pleased to present New Positions, 2021-2022 edition, including works by three contemporary artists based in Denmark. The works presented in this special project are the result of the artists’ recent residency in Detroit. The project, now in its second edition, is coordinated by U.S. based Danish-born ceramist Anders Ruhwald.
During the residency, artists were paired up with local institutions, with access to their studio facilities, as well as their professional network, including opportunities for exchange with and immersion in the current Detroit art scene.
New Positions, 2021-2022 Edition, includes:
ANNELIE GRIMWADE OLOFSSON – Ceramics – College for Creative Studies (CCS)
MORTEN KLITGAARD – Glass – Flint Institute of Arts (FIA)
MARIA KOSHENKOVA – Glass – College for Creative Studies (CCS)
The exhibition will open to the public on Friday, April 29, with a reception from 4 pm to 7 pm, and will be on view through June at our EDITION space. No appointment is necessary to attend the opening. Our current regular hours are WED-THU, 11 am to 5 pm, and FRI-SAT, 11 am to 6 pm, or by appointment.
ANNELIE GRIMWADE OLOFSSON
Grimwade Olofsson, born in Sweden, is an artist, designer and activist. She holds a bachelor’s degree in design from the Royal Danish Academy (KADK. Her work has been exhibited throughout Europe, and the United States.
Grimwade Olofsson’s sculptural objects and work process explore the correlation between industry, society and the environment from a material point of view. She typically works in response to social and environmental issues, either by interacting with a specific place and often by collecting industrial waste materials and byproducts, which she disassembles, shred, burn and up-cycle to create objects with unconventional aesthetics, textures and colors. Her intention is to raise awareness of the human influence on the environment in the supposed Capitalocene era* and to challenge the thought of the relationship between material value, consumption and the environmental ‘price’ paid for it.
*The current geological age – viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
MORTEN KLITGAARD
Morten klitgaard was born in Lønstrup, Denmark in 1981. Before entering academic training, Morten worked for a glass artist called Leif Vange in the town he grew up in, and was also taught and trained for three years by Danish glass artist Tobias Møhl, who is known globally for his use of Venetian techniques. In that period he did a master class with Dante Marioni, where he saw the possibility of learning more about the material. He received a BA from The Royal Danish Design School on Bornholm in 2012.
Morten Klitgaard’s work explores notions of place and reflects on the influential effects of nature on both the landscape and its inhabitants. His pieces appear weatherbeaten, patinated by the rugged Danish coastal landscape the artist grew up in. Oxides, metal pigments and ash are applied during the final heating process, causing the surface of the glass to effervesce and create intricate textures and patterns. The work obscures our perception of material whilst successfully honoring the traditions of glass blowing; it pushes the boundaries of contemporary craft and design.
MARIA KOSHENKOVA
Russian-born, Copenhagen-based artist Maria Koshenkova has been working with glass sculpture for more than 15 years. She holds an MA degree from the State Academy of Art and Design in St. Petersburg, and also attended the Glass Design Program at Kalmar University, Sweden (2004), and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, Denmark (2005-2006).
Through her work, she searches for a place where materiality and emotion meet, a space that emerges from the tensions between freedom and control. Maria believes this can be expressed through the unique ability of glass to move in the ambivalent, mysterious, and unpredictable space between hot (alive), and cold (dead).
Although often incorporating other materials in her work, glass is still the central element of her practice, both conceptually and process wise. In her words, “Working with glass, I get very close to the experience of almost being able to paint in sculptural form.”
Her recent hot sculpted glass works read as wild natural glass forms, which look spontaneous and almost anarchistic, but are actually the result of carefully planned compositions. The artist researches and draws extensively, before building her sculptures using techniques that she is constantly experimenting with and developing.
New Positions is organized in collaboration with the Danish Arts Foundation
With kind support from College for Creative Studies
and The Flint Institute of Arts
