Film: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde (Water Sculpture for Sct. Hans Well), 2021
Museet for Samtidskunst (Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, DK)
In this film I give a short introduction to my Water Sculpture, realized in 2021 in a public park ("Byparken") in connection with the exhibition Bobler - en kunstrute gennem byen (Bubbles an art route through the City)
Thank you: Hans von Hirsch, Maja Li Härdelin, Kinraden(jewellery) & Super Koi Roskilde
Video: Museet for Samtidskunst / Troels Kahl
Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Museet for Samtidskunst
© All photos by Søren Malmose
> Text by Curator Nanna Balslev Strøjer (scroll down)
> Press release Kunsten.nu (in Danish)
> Art Talk Bobler Live & Art Talk @ SixtyEight Art Institute
Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Museet for Samtidskunst
Unique jesmonite casts, Air Bubble Wrap, beads with letter, plastic tube, tubes with copper, copper thread, water pump, epoxy, PU foam, iron, San Pellegrino still water bottle, stone, unique isomalt cast (clear sugar type dyied with fruit colour)
L600 x W500 x H168 cm.
Detail: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Photo: Søren Malmose (June 2021)
Detail: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Photo: the artist (august 2021, around two months later)
Detail: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Detail: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Detail: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde, 2021
Text by Nanna Balslev Strøjer,
Museet for Samtidskunst
Bobler - en kunstrute gennem byen
Bubbles - an art route through the city
28.05-08.08.2021
(Museum of Contemporary Art), Roskilde, Denmark
Ida Retz Wessberg: Vandkunst til Skt. Hans Kilde (Water Sculpture for Sct. Hans’ Well)
Materials: Jesmonite, PU foam, plastic, metal, isomalt, bubble wrap, plastic hoses, water pump and water from Sct. Hans' Well
Location: Byparken, by Saint Sct. Hans’ Well (Sankt Hans Kilde)
‘I am interested in circuits and ventilation systems, and in how I as a sculptor can give form to air. My works often take their starting point in a material or object that contains encapsulated air, and Water Sculpture for Sct. Hans' Well is one example - here, I have among others casted bubble wrap. I see these aspects as deliberate restraints I impose on myself, forcing myself to explore how I can make a sculpture out of an invisible material while at the same calling attention to a material that is not only a major supporting factor in the classic sculptural process – for example in the hardening of plaster or the firing of a kiln – but a vital necessity for all living species. For me, air and ventilation are symbols of our mutual interdependence and of the social and biological circuits of which we are all part.
Reflecting this, my work is a sculptural circuit that has attached itself to another circuit – the fabled Sct. Hans' Well, which has its wellspring near the Cathedral and runs down through the city park, and which waters reportedly have healing powers. The work consists of three vessels cast out of jesmonite, a Pellegrino water bottle, and hoses directing the water up from the well, through the sculpture and down back into the spring again. Furthermore, the vessels feature castings of painkillers such as Codeine, Bonyl and Paracetemol. I see them as ornaments that enter into a conversation with the history of the place as a holy well and source of healing. I have also cast a sphere out of coloured isomalt. Isomalt is a type of sugar, meaning that the sphere will slowly dissolve in the waters. It adds an element of transience to the work, emphasising the relationship between the visible and the invisible. In my works, I combine classic sculptural materials such as bronze and plaster with various everyday materials and non-art materials. By combining and juxtaposing these different categories of materials, I want to challenge the boundaries between the traditional, exalted materials used throughout art history and everyday consumer goods’.
With a nod to fellow women artists from art history, Ida Retz Wessberg’s sculptural practice takes its point of departure in the relationship between air and substance, between the fleetingly immaterial and the solidly material. Retz Wessberg graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2018.
Thank you: Hans von Hirsch, Christian Vind, Maja Li Härdelin & Super Koi Roskilde