“The red yellow summer”

The exhibition The Red Yellow Summer marks the artist’s emerging focus on surface, eschewing previous interests in hidden infrastructures and systems. Hergum’s installation will include a series of sculptures bearing decorative patterns that play off the unique iconography of the exhibition space. Retaining a sense of lightheartedness, the exhibition serves as a meeting point between the sculptural objects and the architecture of the existing space as its previous function as a workplace for smithing.

“I feel the need for a increased life-affirming counterweight to the pessimism and hate speech that rides today’s worldview. I do not believe that every little detail however black or white has to be explicated or digested as a matter of life or death. We all risk drowning in the misery of tomorrows images. Is it acceptable to protect individual optimism in the face of communal misery, to turn of the news, to even attempt to be selective of the burden of absolute input? The exhibition is a simple, high-spirited visceral break to the gray laden images of today. Compositions in brilliant colors and decorative patterns however effortless are highlighted as necessary existential needs. The experience is to be inclusive for the involved, uplifting in its immediate vicinity. This is my pragmatic agitation this summer.”

Anders Hergum was born in Oslo, Norway in 1983 and is currently based in Copenhagen. From 2010-2013 he studied at the Bergen Art Academy, Norway and received his MFA in Visual Arts from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen in 2016. He has held exhibitions at Future Suburban Contemporary, Copenhagen; Tegnerforbundet, Oslo; Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Copenhagen; Kulturhuset, Farum and Gallery SØ, Copenhagen. SMEDJEN is a project space for young experimental art. Each year, an exhibition is awarded to a recently graduated artist from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art’s School of Visual Art to produce site specific work a the house adjacent to the Kunsthal, that was originally used as the workplace for smithing. The artist is selected by René Block, director, Kunsthal 44 Møen and Martin Erik Andersen, Professor, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art.

Supported by The Danish Arts Foundation
Photo: Anders Hergum