{"id":26072,"date":"2014-07-09T00:43:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T06:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=26072"},"modified":"2018-12-10T14:56:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T20:56:47","slug":"bikuben-at-umoca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/bikuben-at-umoca\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Assimilation: Contemporary Dutch Art at UMOCA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For her inaugural project as associate curator at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), Rebecca Maksym envisioned an exhibition that sheds light on a nationality of immigrants not commonly referenced in American migrational history. Rather than a strictly historical chronology, Maksym preferred to think about migration in conceptual and aesthetic terms. As such,\u00a0Bikuben<\/em>, a survey of contemporary Danish artists, is a fascinating case study of trans-national cultural appropriation. While the exhibition beautifully highlights various facets of Danish culture, a larger narrative emerges from analyzing the works collectively. What unfolds is a cyclical pattern of absence, immersion and a subsequent desire to retain and preserve that which has been lost.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s title,\u00a0Bikuben<\/em>, comes from the Danish word for hive. Denmark\u2019s cultural relationship to this symbol is extensive. Taken within the local context of Utah, obvious comparisons conjure the state symbol of the beehive. Included at the beginning of the exhibition are excerpts from a Danish newspaper of the same name. From 1876 to its Depression-era cancellation in 1935,\u00a0Bikuben<\/em>\u00a0was a platform for Utah\u2019s Danish immigrants to keep cultural tradition \u2014 and importantly their language \u2014 alive in their adoptive American nation. Thus,\u00a0Bikuben<\/em>\u00a0embodied the values of industry, progress and perseverance integral to forging a new life.<\/p>\n

The exhibition draws from an array of talented Danish artists currently residing in New York City, Berlin and Copenhagen. The show\u2019s various strengths are exemplified by its diverse media of works, including sound pieces, sculpture, photography, video and collage. The array of media lends to a thematic approach that attempts to conceptualize the aesthetic of migratory patterns and the subsequent emotions of the migrants themselves. Questions regarding national idealism \u2014 both the nature of its construction and its ultimate erosion into another national lens \u2014 prove particularly intriguing.<\/p>\n

Bikuben<\/em>\u2019s artists use this notion of cultural assimilation to engender an intellectual dialogue with their audience. The exhibition\u2019s row of collages use layer, texture and newspapers to symbolize the immigrant\u2019s simultaneous desire to preserve and assimilate. The gallery walls are immersed in an abstract language of shape and color and evoke Minimalism\u2019s intrusion into visitors\u2019 space. Jacob Dahl\u2019s \u201cCAPITAL,\u201d a sculptural series of molds taken from columns, is a modernist reaction to antiquity\u2019s ruins. Kasper Sonne\u2019s large-scale stained rug paintings are reminiscent of Rothko\u2019s high modernist abstraction. Bold rays of golden light shine on visitors as they encircle the exhibition. A gaze at the ceiling reveals Kirstine Roepstorff\u2019s hanging mobile-like sculptures as the culprit. Five of these sculptures are systematically placed throughout the exhibition. Collectively referred to as the\u00a0claymenchen<\/em>\u00a0(German term for clay people), the sculptures represent society\u2019s diverse professions-such as a farmer, an alchemist and a dancer.<\/p>\n

Mie Olise\u2019s \u201cShipsearching\u201d is perhaps the cornerstone of the exhibition. An unmistakably large, wooden appendage from the adjacent wall, the piece works as a vessel of exploration for visitors invited to step in and climb inside of it. Similar to a ship, the white-painted tunnel is claustrophobic as it ascends upward, culminating in a seated area with a projected image of ship sails.<\/p>\n

Via three video pieces and one sound piece, visitors to\u00a0Bikuben<\/em>\u00a0are bombarded by bellowing echoes and haunting ruminations. Perhaps the most startling is Bjorn Norgaard\u2019s video depicting animal sacrifice. Norgaard \u2014 considered by many to be one of the most important cultural figures in Denmark \u2014 created an experimental performance art school akin to Alan Kaprow\u2019s Happenings movement. His video piece is jarringly violent, depicting an ancient Viking ritual of sacrificing animals as a token of luck before a long journey. The piece, created during the early 1970\u2019s, was created as a protest of the Vietnam war.<\/p>\n

The act of migration has long been chronicled in the history of art, yet due to the diversity of perspectives that blend together to form the American \u2018melting pot,\u2019 few take time to consider the unique cultural traditions of each nation that came here to forge a new life. Through a comprehensive array of artistic media and voices,\u00a0Bikuben<\/em>\u00a0captures the delicate nuances of identity itself \u2014 constructed less by national heritage than by experience, memory and context.<\/p>\n

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