“The Orchestra”

Maiken Stæhr has created the exhibition-scenario “The Orchestra” in Kunsthal 44Møens project space for emerging artists PS44. Placed in the middle of the gallery’s old workshop is a sculpture, made from a digital church organ, and a group of faceless and headless papier-mache figures. Parallel to this scenario the relation between spectator and audience is activated by the work »We whistle while we listen«; a little rippling fountain surrounded by laid-back ceramic figurines. “The Orchestra” expands temporally and sculpturally in Pianohouse – one of the permanent works of the gallery – consisting of a grand piano now partially taken over by nature. The sound piece “Three in one organ to rule them all” composed by S. Gerup specially for “The Orchestra”, sets the tone of the installation. The piece has been performed and recorded on organs in two different churches as well as on the exhibition’s house organ. Together, all of these elements set the stage for an unfolding of a potential drama; for an “orchestra” (the ancient Greek term for ‘dancing place’) where music and performative experiments can materialize and take place with guests from near and far.

The sculptural, almost geometrical shape of the organ is placed in a power-position in the old blacksmith workshop. The organ is often identified as an instrument, but the artist associates it more to an image surface or shape than to its auditive, functional properties. Stæhr has already invited an audience of anticipating papier mache figures. As she explains: »The audience is standing in line, waiting for the astonishing to happen.«

For the duration of the exhibition, Stæhr hosts a number of performances and concerts with organizers, professional musicians, performance artists, designers, amateurs amongst others. In addition, »The Orchestra« will set the stage for a series of concerts with Benjamin Frimodt Pedersen and S. Gerup (4.7 1:30 pm) Christian Rønn (18.7 20 pm), Olga Szymula and Eli Gudnason (25.7 20 pm), Sune Lysdal and Nikolai (1.8 at 1:30 pm) Villiam Miklos Andersen (7.8 1:30 pm), Yrdloop (8.8 1:30 pm), Lucille Groos and Kirstine Bjerre (12.8 1:30 pm), Hanne Raffnsøe (13.8 1:30 pm), Oliver Nani (16.8 1:30 pm) Ragnhild May and Kristoffer Raasted (28.8 1:30 pm) Ditta Erös (29.8 16 pm) TS Høeg and P.O. Jørgens (6.9 16 pm). The exhibition program and documentation can be found on our Instagram as well as on our website. When the exhibition is over, Stæhr has created an audio portrait of the folk soul at Møn in the summer of 2020.

Maiken Stæhr (b. 1992) graduated from the Jutland Academy of Fine Arts in the summer of 2019. Stæhr works at the intersection of sculpture, movement and sound united in an always performative starting point. Through live performance and performative xxx installations, Stæhr examines man as the product of an organised, codified and hypersocial society. She frames and stages everyday repetitions as unreal and absurd.

Supported by Det Obelske Familiefond