SATURDAY, JULY 20
TRAIN TO HUMLEBAEK
What a treat! We jumped on a commuter train, rode 35 minutes through forest and ocean lands, passing large and small, black and clay roofed, black and white painted, well-kept homes and contemporary grey and glass block-structured apartments to the town of Humlebaek. A short walk led us to an oasis, a self-contained world of art and wonder and nature intermingled.
LOUISIANA – SNAKING INDOOR/OUTDOOR MUSEUM
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is housed in a semi-circular building that sits like a snake on a few acres of land. Green spaces, forests and lawns fill the semi-circle’s middle and perimeters. Tall trees, a lake, hills, a long children’s slide attached to a children’s play area, a cafe atop a rolling hill and concert hall make up the grounds. In the green spaces are sculptures, by Max Ernst, Pippilotti Rist, Henry Moore, and Alexander Calder, to name a few.
The main exhibitions are found in the Museum’s wings (this snake has wings) but exhibitions are throughout the snake’s body, a body made of glass on either side, and sometimes glass overhead as well. Standing on the large, central lawn, we could see people walking through the museum, trees and sculptures behind them. The wings (and the body) have bellies, which like a coiling snake, curve underground to an exhibition space where light can be controlled.
At the open end of the semi-circle is a giant Henry Moore and a hill dropping into a lawn and the ocean. People lounged on the grass and steps. Others wandered through the sculptures. Kids rolled down the grassy hill. From the cafe where we ate Saturday brunch like many others, we could look out and see the ocean.
PERMANENT COLLECTION
We stayed five hours, and didn’t have enough time. In addition to the museum, a bi-leveled gift shop has beautifully-designed objects, ceramic plates and cups, art books, clothing and jewelry.
The permanent collection is incredibly impressive, as evidenced by the quality of sculptures in the garden. Inside are many Giacometti’s (some in a room of their own) and a few of his drawing (one looks just like the priest in Frances Bacon’s painting). Paintings range from Picasso to Warhol. One temporary collection “What are you looking at?” included pieces curated from the permanent collection, organized by theme. We felt very well travelled as we moved through it, drawn to artists whose work we have seen during the year such as Francesca Woodman, a young woman photographer we were introduced to in Edinburgh; and a series of paintings by Michel Majerus, whose work we had just seen for the first time in Stockholm in the Boros Collection. We also liked seeing one of “David’s” (David Hockney‘s) works, a large, charcoal drawing of red rock country.
WONDERLAND PIPILOTTI
But the attraction — what drove us to this particular museum — was the Pipilotti Rist show, and it was pure delight…a wonderland as only she can create. A retrospective that wasn’t in order, because why?, was both thought-provoking and light-hearted. I love her ability to be so much at the same time — a feminist with humour who delights in and shamelessly exposes the female body. She is thoughtful and silly, angry and funny, vulnerable and gregarious, serious and ridiculous (some of her singing just makes me laugh out loud), and so, so clever, creating all these worlds that we want to enter and stay in — whether miniature bedrooms with projections on the planet Mars that has crashed through on wall, or a video, projected on the ceiling, of swimming underwater in a lake, viewed from a comfy bed on our backs. Shoes on the floor. It’s Pippi meets Alice’s world…wonder and mischief.
Honestly, we could have spent the whole day in Pippi world. There must have been twenty or more videos (one – a tiny point in the floor, one – her screaming for attention from the wall, one – her image in the ground, one- projected on huge walls,one- her singing).
One room was filled with an installation of lit globes you had to walk through to get to the next room. The next room, warehouse-size, played with scale and light, and was vaguely laid out like a home. A desk floated in the middle where you could write a message to Rist. There was a bed with a projection on it. A container crate you peeped into to see a minature bedroom. Giant pillows rested in an area where you could lay down and look at a three-wall projection of skin and plant life, an oasis in an oasis, like a hallucination or dream.
HOMELESS SOULS
One other excellent, temporary exhibition of note was titled, Homeless Souls. All works were by artists who have been forced to leave their homes… from Iraq to Kosovo to countries in Africa. Pieces were poignant, and well executed whether painting, installation or video. I particularly liked a site specific installation by Petrit Halilaj, an artist from the former Yugoslavia made of sticks and pottery. The piece reminded me of Anselm Keifer. A Kara Walker was also thrown into the mix, and while she was the only artist who wasn’t directly effected by war or climate trauma and forced to leave her home, her work depicted refugees who escaped by rafts and evoked, as all her works do, the trauma of slavery.
At the end of the day, we were satiated, full of art like one can be full of excellent food and wine. Fantastic museum, fantastic art, a great day trip.
