2024

13 January - 2 June 2024

ÆTER / AETHER

The historical term AETHER is the indefinable "etheric", pure substance which, according to classical philosophy and physics, filled the sky, which was later drawn down to the lower air layers, where it served as a substance through which light rays and electromagnetic waves were thought to pass move. Historically, ether has given rise to many speculations: how do you retain this substance, how do you measure, weigh, describe or visualize it? In modern times, both physicists and artists have tried to put words and form to Ether as a phenomenon.

AETHER is a large Nordic exhibition initiative that shows works by 12 artists from Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Norway. The exhibition's title and concept have been formulated by the two artists Vinni Frederiksen and Ane Fabricius Christiansen, and the contributors are invited to contribute works that deal with the theme - how Aether appears, how we can understand it, and what elusive existential ideas it is also an attempt to articulate. They each work from their own practice and thus contribute to a whole that fills all the exhibition halls at Art Center Silkeborg Bad.

The participants are: Anett Biliczki, Pipaluk Lake, Pekka Paikkari (FI), Grethe Wittrock, Inge Lise Westman, Kasper Friis Kjeldgaard, Erna Skúladóttir (IS), Hanne Friis (NO), Lise Seier Petersen, Barbara Amalie Skovmand Thomsen and the two initiators Vinni Frederiksen and Ane Fabricius Christiansen. Read more

15 June - 22 September 2024

In light of the repetition

Culture narrator Peter Brandes
Peter Brandes continuously plays through and reinterprets selected basic cultural narratives with his art. These shared narratives, which are otherwise easily forgotten in today's high-speed society, he retrieves from the history of civilization, biblical material and mythology. Often with suggestive visual expressions that convey important experience and open to reflection more than they postulate ready-made answers. His works re-actualize and throw new perspectives into important narratives.
Brand new works are shown as well as traces that reach back in a practice that has a great internal coherence. The exhibition forms a key to a deeper understanding of the practice the artist has now developed over a lifetime. Read more

15 June - 22 September 2024

Populated Landscapes

Sculptor Lars Abrahamsen, who himself apprenticed with them, has curated an exhibition that focuses on the graphic art of the photographer family Thomas and Poul Pedersen's Study Collection of Graphics (see more here). The collection itself today belongs to the Art Center Silkeborg Bad and is found on a daily basis in folders in a special room next to the halls where Inhabited Landscapes are now presented in a larger area. In the same period and area, changing artists will work with their art for open air in a living Drawing Studio. Read more

15 June - 22 September 2024

THE GRASS IS GREENER - WHERE I WATER MY HEART

An encounter with the metaphysical heart
Visual artist Linda Riber invites the audience into the field between the tangible and the intangible human heart. She sets up dialogue, interaction and reflection based on her personal experiences and approaches to the theme. Over a long period of time, she has collected data and researched both the physiological and the metaphysical aspects of what the heart is capable of. Data from various research sources is included in one of the artist's installations. The exhibition in the east wing consists of 3 installations, each in their own smaller room.

5 October 2024 - 12 Januqary 2025

Mirko Zrinšćak - Essence of Nature

Mirko Zrinšćak is a sculptor, born in 1953 in Volosko in Croatia. His sculptural forms have in common that they are made of wood that he finds in his immediate surroundings - a protected nature reserve in the forest of Mount Učka, where he lives and works.
Zrinšćak works like a craftsman with the material and it is the work with the wood in ecological and spiritual balance that is in focus. Some of Mirko Zrinšćak's sculptural works are of a constructive nature, others are more organic, and as an artist Mirko Zrinšćak follows in the footsteps of Brancusi and Arp: He searches for the soul of nature, which he translates into sculpture.
Anne Berk, who is the curator of the exhibition, emphasizes: "For me, his fluid forms reflect energy, growth and longing. Many of his elongated forms reach for the sky. They have a soul.”

5 October 2024 - 12 January 2025

FEEL THE SPACE OF THE FOREST

FEEL THE SPACE OF THE FOREST is an exhibition of works of art and projects that, with different starting points, give the viewer an impression of the special space that the forest represents.
The theme of the exhibition - forest - has relevance for artists from different places on the globe. Their approach is different and to some extent reflects where they come from.
The theme is broad. Like many other exhibitions in these years with a focus on "nature", it gives us the opportunity to think about and appreciate the part of our surroundings that is the forest. Perhaps even expand our knowledge of the forest and its importance to our lives - both the physical and psychological part of human existence.

The 11 represented artists of different nationalities have very different approaches to the phenomenon of forest: as memory, botanical site, climate maintainer, CO2 absorber, as a place for activism, as sacred and a place for contemplation.

Actors in the exhibition are: Abel Rodríguez (1941, Columbia), Margit Lukács (1973, NL) & Persijn Broersen (1974, NL), Cecylia Malik (1975, PL), Marinus Boezem (1934, NL), Helge Hommes (1962, DE) & Saxana Nicole Schötschel (DE), Antti Laitinen (1975, FI), Sanna Kannisto (1974, FI), Malin Arnell (1970) & Åsa Elzén (1972)(both SE).
The exhibition is curated by Dorte Kirkeby Andersen from Art Center Silkeborg Bad and Anne Berk (NL). In 2018, the latter curated the exhibition Beyond the Body at the KunstCentret.

13 October - 8 December 2024

On the trail of a sleeping blanket

Sideshow in Skovvilla

Weaver Annemette Larsen says: "Seven years ago he said no - Poul, the old owner of Kjellerup Weaving Mill. when I came up with my Midtjyske Tæpper (Central Jutland Carpets) project. And maybe it was good, because it ended up in Norway and it was as local as it could get back then. That's a whole other story (and a good one).
But I was so happy when I heard one day that KjellerupWeaving Mill had new owners, that all the machines were not packed in a container and sent east. Claus and Christian said yes! - Yes, for a collaboration on a new carpet. With their yarns on their looms and with my design and binding, developed in a quality adapted to their equipment. A long cherished dream.
Think that Denmark's only weaving factory is only 34 minutes from my workshop! And to think that the two manufacturers let me in and let me get my hands on all their machines!
This exhibition and accompanying book describe the long road from the first failed attempts until we reached the goal of something viable. My meeting with Kjellerup and the old weaver. All the samples, all the woven yards, a mixed bunch: The sad and the quirky and the runaway. The outdated and abandoned and the sour with too much yellow. The nice ones and the delicate ones and the obscure ones that were just sitting in the cupboard at the first shot. The boring ones and the ones far out in the woods. And then there are those who just long for the sofa - they are all there.
Welcome them when they land in reality! They are from me and Kjellerup Weaving Mill.”