Carsten Höller SUPERFLEX Danh Vo: Recent Projects

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Carsten Höller’s most recent project with Niels Borch Jensen Editions, the series Four Birds, depicts bird hybrids that were born infertile as a result of their breeding. The depiction is scarce in colour, making it harder to experience their special beauty, as well as serving as a reminder of their transience. The birds’ uniqueness and their sad destiny gain a new esteem in Höller’s prints. 

Kwassa Kwassa by Danish artist’s group SUPERFLEX refers to their latest film project of the same name, portraying a boatbuilder on the island of Anjouan in the Comoro Islands. The boats are used for fishing, but also to transport migrants to the EU. They become carriers of migrants on a dangerous ocean in a complex political setup as well as vehicles for dreams of reaching a better life on the other shore.

In the conceptual works of Vietnamese-born Danish artist Danh Vo, the idea of ‘cultural identity’  is granted new critical significance. Juxtaposing personal life with cultural dogma, Vo focuses on the issues of forming identities within cultural and political contexts, often using his own biography as material. Untitled (Self-portrait as Carrie) depicts Vo posing for a simple school portrait in Denmark, making this personal yet formal photograph a manifestation of the individual’s struggle to integrate into a new system. 03.06.1965, an image of the first American extra-vehicular activity in outer space, refers to a utopian space in which national borders and cultural identity are all together dissolved.