I am pleased to have been invited for a solo-exhibition at the artist-run exhibition space M100 in Odense, Denmark. 

The exhibition with the title; “Gimme Shelter", is based on the need to have a roof over one's head. A home is as basic a need as food and clothing and constitutes the base from which the individual can unfold his/her life. Being without housing can therefore be deeply problematic and can worsen both social and health problems as well as the opportunities to contribute to the community.

This applies not least to artists, who in the vast majority of cases need both a home and a workplace. In 1929, Virginia Woolf published the essay "A Room of One's Own", in which she examines the relationship between women and men and the writing of fiction. In her reflections on what conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art and literature, her main thesis is that a woman must at least have "some money and a room of her own" in order to produce a work.

Several reports have shown that art and culture contribute financially to the cities, both concretely and as a job-creating factor, but especially also in relation to increasing the quality of life and tourism. But at the same time, rent prices in the cities are rising rapidly, partly due to the general well-being of the housing market and speculation in properties from capital funds. That fact increases the need for ever higher earnings, i.e. even less time for the artistic practice. A report from Copenhagen municipality and the council for visual arts from 2020 showed that 75 percent of the artists in Copenhagen have considered moving out of the city due to rising property prices and a lack of studios. For the exhibition at M100, I will create a total installation that points to these dysfunctional conditions.

Thanks to Tine Oksbjerg for the invitation and for curating the exhibition. 

Everyone is welcome to the opening of the exhibition Friday September 29^th from 17-20

M100

Søndergade 26
5000 Odense C

Exhibition period: 29th September – 5th November 2023.   

Opening hours: Thursday 17-19, Saturday-Sunday 13-16

The exhibition is kindly supported by The Danish Arts Council, Odense Municipality, Den Obelske Familiefond, Statens Værksteder for Kunst, VAK- Vestsjællands arbejdende kunstner-værksteder, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond and Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fond.

I am happy to have been invited back to Sorø Art Museum this summer, for the third and final part of the exhibition trilogy ‘Nature Speaks’.

I will be exhibiting a previous work, the installation ‘I'm gonna build you a house, I'm gonna whisper in every single stone’ originally made for my solo-exhibition for FRAKTAL in 2022.

With this summer's special exhibition 'CONNECTED: Art.Nature.Sorø.', Sorø Art museum completes the exhibition trilogy 'Nature speaks' with a special focus on contemporary artists' view of nature in and around the area of Sorø.

Several artists from the two previous exhibitions 'Nature speaks' (2021) and 'Back to the roots' (2022), will return to the museum together with three local artists, who are all invited to enter into a dialogue with the nature surrounding Sorø. Among others, they are focusing on nature's underlying communication systems, the longing for cohesion and the role of climate change in their study of nature.

Through works by a number of Danish and international artists, we explore the relationship between nature, communication and art. Can art expand our understanding and experience of nature? What meanings and ideas are attached to the local nature? And what happens in the meeting between contemporary art and nature in Sorø?

Look forward to discovering works inside and outside the museum's walls. Some of the artists produce completely new works for the exhibition, while others contribute with existing works. Works will be shown all around Sorø - both in the city and in the forest.

The participating artists: Amitai Romm, Andreas Rasmussen, Anna Bak, Dan Stockholm, Laurits Malthe Gulløv, Lisbeth Bank, Pernille Bøggild, Regitze Engelsborg Karlsen, René Schmidt, Sonja Strange and Silas Inoue.

Everyone is welcome for the opening Thursday June 15th 17:00- 18:30.

Exhibition period: 16/06/2023 - 24/09/2023

FB EVENT

I am happy to have been invited to make a solo-exhibition at the artist-run space, Fraktal Ventesal.

Fraktal is placed in the former waiting room at Skørping train station. Skørping is a small town placed in the middle of Rold Forest, Denmark’s second largest forest. Each year Fraktal dedicates their entire exhibition program to one of the living organisms of the forest, 2022 is the year of mushrooms.

It has been a fun challenge to come up with an exhibition to this very specific theme. In recent years, there has been ground-breaking research into fungi, research which has shown both that fungi have a language and that they can potentially also become intelligent building blocks in our future homes.

In the exhibition, I have used this knowledge as inspiration for a total installation, created site-specifically for the space. The installation consists of a built wooden structure that mirrors the existing space. On the construction, carved wooden mushrooms "grows" and on the floor, soft tufted mushrooms stretch out like carpets. For the installation, I have also produced a sound piece that serves as a background for the exhibition. The sound produces a narrative, with the mycelium network as a contact-seeking being that so fervently wants to be heard. Combined with tones from our human technological communication platforms, a narrative is formed about our need to understand and be understood ourselves. At the same time, the tone of the voice changes, from the demanding, intrusive, to the almost seductively pleading, casting doubt on how well-intentioned the need for contact really is and what the message entails.

The exhibition is open every Thursday or by appointment until November 13^th 2022.

Fraktal Ventesal, Skørping Station, 9520 Skørping

Thanks to the The Danish artist workshops for work-residency for the production of the exhibition 

The exhibition is supported by the The Danish Art Foundation 

I am happy to be part of the group-exhibition "Back to the roots" at Sorø Art Museum.

Participating artists: Anna Bak (DK), Gry Bagøien (DK), IC-98 (FI), Lisbeth Bank & Pernille Bøggild (DK), Rasmus Myrup (DK), Sonja Strange (DK), Ulrik Heltoft (DK) og Emil Westman Hertz (DK).

With this summer's special exhibition "Back to the Roots", Sorø Art Museum focuses on our relationship to nature and examines whether, through works by current contemporary artists, one can establish a form of communication bridge between nature and man, in order to perhaps "return to" or approach us to nature.

The exhibition is on view 20/05/2022 - 11/09/2022

Read more about the exhibition here: https://xn--sorkunstmuseum-sqb.dk/udstillinger/tilbage-til-roedderne/

EPIGON 

[epi´go´n] A person, especially artist, who in their work imitates

significant predecessors or role models without showing independent

originality

The exhibition EPIGON shows the results of an experimental collaboration project between the two visual artists Nils Elvebakk Skalegard (N) and Anna Bak (DK). Through a 2-month work residency in a joint studio at The Danish Art Workshops in Copenhagen, the two artists have worked separately, but at the same time closely connected by a common dogma.

In the first month, each artist has produced works based on their own individual artistic practice, with free hands in relation to media, design and themes. In the following month, each artist should get inspired by the other party's works and recreate these from the same material, medium or objective, but at the same time preserve their own artistic identity.

The experiment is a study of formalistic similarities and differences, where the composition and common aesthetic starting point of the works are clear, however the individual expressions separate them.

In a world with such a strong focus on individualism, this is a collaborative project where plagiarism and originality, the traditional and the authentic, are woven together in one and the same exhibition.

Reflections and the self-referential have often been the focal point for conversations between the two artists. Reflections/mirroring appear both in some of the sculptures, in between the works and externally in the space as a whole.

EPIGON is exhibited at:

RAM Gallery, March 31 - May 7, 2022,

www.ramgalleri.no

Kongens Gate 15

Oslo

and on

Marie Kirkegaard Gallery, June 3 - July 2, 2022.

www.mariekirkegaard.com

Holbergsgade 17C

Copenhagen

I am happy to have been invited to do an exhibition and artist-talk at the exhibition space Lokal-Int in Biel-Bienne, Switzerland on Thursday september 26th at 19:30. I have been invited on the basis of my current residency stay at La Dépendance. For this evening i will talk about my decade long interest i survivalism, isolation and nature retreats, the paradoxes and myths spun by the encounter between the artist and isolation in the wilderness. I will do a reading from my 2015 publication, Wilderness Survival - A Guide to the Aesthetics of Survivalism, show a screening of the video-work Hermit from 2019 as well as present a couple of new works that i have made during my residency time here in Switzerland. 

Lokal-Int

Hugistrasse 3, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland

https://lokal-int.ch/

I am happy to have been invited for a 5 week stay at the artist in residency place, La Dépendance, in St. Imier, Switzerland. 

La Dépendance is a cottage situated on the grounds of the cooperative Brasserie du Pont, a house inhabited by ten friends who collectively redesigned the property in order to live together within the rural outskirts of the village St.Imier, located in the Swiss Jura region. The cottage serves as space for artist projects and hosts a residency programm. La Dépendance is moulded by Jan van Oordt, a family of mice, some lichens and nameless circumstancial intertwinings.

I am looking forward to, once again, being situated in a rural, quiet and simple place, for some breathing, working and reflecting moments. 

I am happy to announce that I have been selected for a site-specific art commission for the future NH Hotel, which is opening at the renowned modernistic building, “Ørkenfortet”, placed at Strandgade in Copenhagen. The building was originally built as an administration building for the Burmeister & Wain shipyard and was inaugurated in 1962 according to drawings by architect Palle Suenson.

This autumn, a total of 150 artists took part in an open call competition for the commission job to decorate the entrance area of the future hotel with a unique work of art. The task was to develop a work that either tells a story about the place or can generate future stories for the hotel staff and guests.

Ever Mighty - Forever Transforming is the working-title of my art proposal that got selected for the commission. My proposal for the commission project tells the story of the property's original function as an administration building for the shipyard B&W. Ever Mighty was the name of the last ship produced by B&W on Refshale Island. The ship was dismantled in 2016 and its basic elements scattered and recycled in various parts of the world. The art-project addresses stories of materiality, innovation, time and function and builds on three basic elements from B & W’s ships; the ship's hull - that carries the weight, the giant diesel engine -that creates the power, and the propellers -that directs the movement of the ship. The artwork will be completed during 2021.

I am looking forward to sharing the process of this big job with you and showing the final outcome! 

Read more about the project HERE

I am pleased to welcoming you to my first solo show at Marie Kirkegaard gallery in Copenhagen.

 At the exhibition Through the impact of time my scars will show I will be presenting a new production of sculptural works and framed textile collages, with a thematic focus on the idea of heritage and environment, processes and imprints.

Press release: 

Time allegedly heals all wounds, but they don’t disappear completely. A scar will always remain. An evidence of what has happened and a trace of the skin and body tissue’s repairing process. As time passes, the marks on our body increases, wrinkles will start to show, skin cells will change, and hair pigment is reduced. No one knows exactly how and why our body will change as we get older. Some theories claim that aging is caused by injuries from ultraviolet light over time, wear and tear on the body, or byproducts of metabolism. Other theories view aging as a predetermined process controlled by our genes.
 
Time, process and natural science is recurring themes in Anna Bak’s artistic practice. Through her work, Bak often explores humans’ conflict-filled or ambivalent encounters with nature. Her works often contains an existential melancholy or desolation. The solo exhibition Through the impact of time my scars will show is no exception.
 
In 2018, Anna Bak spent 30 days isolated in a Swedish forest, as a personal experiment and a study of the depiction of the artistic archetype, that retreats to nature to gain a special self-reliance and inspiration. At the beginning of the 30 days, the artist buried two pieces of fabric in the forest, one was left there for the same duration as her own stay at the site, another was left for a whole year and later dug up by her in the summer of 2019. These pieces of fabric with their molded stains and dissolved fibers, fascinated Bak to experiment more and examine the imprints that arises in the process when fabric mixed with organic materials is left aside for different intervals. This interest has initiated the works presented in this exhibition
 
Created under complex circumstances between the controlled and the uncontrollable, the innate and the obtained, the original and the supplemented, the works comment on our own human existence - Our lifespan, impressions and actions that leave traces in us and shape us into who we are. As such, the works, with their appearance and titles, bring to mind questions of heritage and environment - what has been given to us in advance and what we are responsible for ourselves, including the actions and circumstances that can be destructive and scar us for life.
 
We look forward to welcoming you to Anna Bak’s, Through the impact of time my scars will show. Opening reception on October 9, at 4-8pm.

The exhibition is kindly supported by the Danish Arts Foundation

Thanks to The Danish Art Workshops for working residency and support

Gallery hours:
Tuesday-Friday 12-17:30
Saturday 12-15

Furthermore, the gallery is open by appointment

Marie Kirkegaard
Holbergsgade 17C
DK-1057 Copenhagen K 

KUNSTEN PÅ KANTEN (ART ON THE EDGE) is a podcast series in 4 episodes, examining 4 different art-platforms all situated in the provincial North-west coast of Denmark. The podcast series got published on the Danish art-website IDOART.DK in April 2020.

Link to the podcast series: https://www.idoart.dk/kunsten-paa-kanten

The title is referring to both art projects taking place in the periphery and art in a tense situation. The purpose of the podcast is to generate knowledge and awareness of contemporary art platforms in the periphery and discuss how they individually relate to their local context and to the general political discourse of founding distribution and the center-periphery debate of Denmark. Each episode focuses on a specific art platform situated on the North-West coast of Jutland, the episodes are built up around interviews with the people who are part of the organization or administration of the individual platforms, or in other ways connected to them.The interviews and editing process was done by myself, with additionally consulting help and sound editing from former podcast and radio-producer at Radio 24syv and currently board member of Center for Podcasting, Kim G. Hansen. 

The four episodes are individually based on the following four art platforms:

• ET4U, Nees
• Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon, Videbæk
• SMK THY, Doverodde
• Country Town / Hygum kunstmuseum, Lemvig

 The project is supported by The Danish Art Foundation

I am happy to invite you to the collaborative exhibition G.ON.E. at the artist-run exhibition space; Future Suburban Contemporary in Brønshøj, Denmark. At the exhibition Australian artist Joseph Flynn and myself will be presenting new works as well as a collaborative project we have worked on together for the past month. 

FSC BATTLE#6 - G.ON.E. 

by Joseph Flynn (AU) VS Anna Bak (DK)

curated by FSC / Jens Ivar Kjetså (NO)

@@@@@

Opens on Sunday 22nd of September  @ 14:00-18:00

(open on request from 23rd of September - 12th of October)

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/644109592780012/

 From the Press release:

Joseph Flynn (living in Australia) will together with Anna Bak (Denmark) engage in the 6th Art BATTLE in Future Suburban Contemporary. At FSC they will plan, collaborate, fight and execute an experiment, a social/art exchange and create the final show together with FSC. 

Joseph and Anna sharing the same field of interest in the post apocalyptic prepper/survivalist structures of contemporary living. They work both within this investigation and interacting with the materials and its strange worlds of survival in the heavy times of now. Back to the basic, into the weird, lives of micro collectives opens up, just two clicks away. A world where we are all connected and in safe distance to avoid contact. They both converts this into their own artistic language of the contemporary art. Out in the suburban villa area of Brønshøj they will work closely and exchange their thoughts and skills to, in the end, become one voice. A play of pre planned works becoming part of the context, where the space and its surroundings might echoing into the finalisation, and exchanges of common ground. Here new ideas and plans will create a new base for their works to interact and to become something third. Since they both share some of the same base of interests, but living on two sides of the planet, FSC wanted to create the path and place for them to get into IRL (In Real Life) engagement.

I am very pleased to be part of this group exhibition together with the three other artists; Shinya Ishida, John Knuth and Mette Vangsgaard at the Copenhagen based Marie Kirkegaard Gallery. The exhibition opens during Copenhagen art week Friday 24th. May. For the Babylon exhibition I am presenting 3 new sculptural works and a couple of older framed works.

‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad’ 

(Nimrod; in. Genesis 11:4)

Press release:

Imagine a unique metropolis surrounded by triple ring walls with the impressive Ishtar Gate and inside the city’s glorious tower, the massive pyramid-like ziggurat and the Marduk temple, covered with lapis lazuli and adorned with large bronze horns radiating in the sun. These magnificent buildings were the pride of the Babylonians, but also the source of the myth of human pride and fall, as the impressive and powerful walled city enhanced the prestige, and revealed the human vanity-motivated conquest for power and glory. This is why God intervened according to the legend and confused the languages, which caused the construction process of the Tower of Babel to cease. The myth of Babylon has travelled for millennia and symbolized man’s arrogance and fall, debauchery and disobedience to God’s will. It is such an indelible symbol that we have almost forgotten that Babylon was an actual metropolis; a political and cultural centre of power, and is not least one of the seven wonders of Antiquity.

Our exhibition Babylon pursues the fundamentally contradictory relations inherited in the metropolises of today. We at the gallery love our metropolises all over the world. We are fascinated of their beauty as well as ugliness, and of the human relations that goes with it. It is here in the cities we get to enjoy and experience the major current issues in a very real and interesting way; like air pollution, water shortages, sustainability, immigration, cultural differences, human vanity, arrogance and debauchery, etc.

The four artists; Shinya Ishida, John Knuth, Mette Vangsgaard and Anna Bak, are from different cities in the world, and each in their respective ways, they show us how human relations and the city, that nurtured and inspired them, is woven into the very thought processes of their work. The developing socio-undercurrents we experience in the city produce mesmerizing and somewhat disturbing beautiful results in their respective artistic universes.

Marie Kirkegaard
Holbergsgade 17C
DK-1057 Copenhagen K

Gallery hours:
Tuesday-Friday 12-18
Saturday 12-15

I am very happy to announce my first bigger solo-exhibition titled "HERMIT". The exhibition will take place at Overgaden -Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, opening 25th January 2019.

This project has already been on its way for a long time and i see it as a sort of culmination of many years interest in the idea of survivalism, self-inflicted isolation, self-reliance and search for authenticity.

The opening will be on Friday the 25^th, you can find the official invite on facebook here:

HERMIT OPENING

From Overgadens Website:

A longing for nature and simple authentic life has in recent years seen a revival in big parts of the West. But what actually happens when you choose to pull the plug from society? The artist Anna Bak (b. 1985) has posed this challenge to herself and throughout the summer of 2018, she moved into the wilderness in order to live and work without any contact to the surrounding world. On her first big solo show she presents the outcome of this experiment, which has resulted in a series of new works that explore the influence of isolation on the psyché and the artistic production. Several of the works point to the duration of the experiment as in a series of drawings of the same tree  – one for each day of the stay  – which together form a visual register of the changing states of both perception and the mind. This focus is expanded in a new video work where the artist through references to shamanistic rituals and mythic characters raises questions of identity, origin, and trust in oneself along with the doubt and frustration that arises without the ability to mirror oneself in others. With the experimental and existential layers of the exhibition, Anna Bak thus inspires us to reflect on the conflicts and paradoxes inherent in contemporary romantic concepts of nature and authenticity along with the role of the artist in modern society.

From July 15th to august 17th 2018 I am going off the grid, it will not be possible to contact me in any ways durring this time. The experiment is part of a research for an upcoming solo-show. More information will follow.

Participating artists: Henry Andersen, Anna Bak, Eric Baudelaire, Tatiana Bohm, Simon Bedwell, Laurie Charles, Anthony Colclough, Liam Gillick, Jenny Holzer, Lukas Müller, Office For Joint Administrative Intelligence (Chris Dreier & Gary Farrelly), Linder Sterling, Parasite 2.0., Suzanne Treister, Frank Wasser, Zero Desk

Curated/Edited by Pádraic E. Moore

Letters of Last Resort is a publication, exhibition and performance programme. The project is informed by ongoing research into the ‘culture of apocalypse’. Some of the material included in this compendium was produced specifically for the project while other elements were extant long before this endeavour commenced. Aside from the desire to assemble and disseminate these contributions from artists and writers, another factor motivating this work was the aspiration to initiate a project that served as a testament to the possibilities of collaboration. The development of this project entailed a pooling of energy and resources from the numerous individuals and I’m deeply grateful to all those who contributed. In the face of mounting anxiety and socio-political uncertainty, processes such as this are still truly inspiriting. The title of this project refers to letters signed by the British Prime Minister located on each of the submarines carrying nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles that constitute the Trident defence programme.

-Pádraic E. Moore

I have produced a new piece for the exhibition. The work is titled: "SHTF" and is supported by Danish Cultural Institute, Brussel and The Danish Art Foundation

I have been selected to participate in the JCE biennale for 2017-2019 with my work A congruous variety of pieces or parts . 

The Biennale "Jeune Création Européenne" takes place every second year and is shown in 7 different countries around Europe. The project has the purpose to find and show some of the best young contemporary artists from the different countries. 8 artists have been selected from each country and all 56 artists are shown on the touring exhibition in 7 recognized museums and art centers in Europe. The Art Building in Vraa is the Scandinavian rep-resentative at the JCE and has selected the Danish artists.

The official opening is Saturday the 14th april from 14.00-16.00

Abyss, [uh-bis]:
- a deep, immeasurable space, gulf, or cavity
- the primal chaos before Creation

D7 is an artist-runned exhibition space in a 110 sqm basement on Østerbro, Copenhagen. The exhibition space is highly influenced by the condition of the basement, with moist peeling walls, low ceiling, rustic uneven concrete floors and only the sparse sunlight from two small windows. The entrance to the room goes through a narrow little twisted staircase. In other words, when you enter the room, you have a strong feeling of being uner the ground, in an underlying world.

For the exhibition ABYSS, Rune Bosse and Anna Bak have created a total installation in which boths individual works and practices interact with each other and with the space.
Below the surface of what is visible to us, a lot of processes is at work. There is fungus, bacteria, roots and spores in everything, they immerse and spread into everything, but perhaps these elements is also clinching it all together, and without these intrusive forces it would all fall apart. The artists' common interests for nature and the essential forces that affect us, have created an installation that acts as a physical experience in the basement's atmosphere. A world where organic forces seem to both dissolve the space and keeping it from collapsing, a processual transformation on the boundary between a total chaos and the stage immediately before creation.

The sound in the room is an enhanced version of the Schumann resonance. The Schumann resonances (SR) are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency (ELF) portion of the Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum. Schumann resonances are global electromagnetic resonances, generated and excited by lightning discharges in the cavity formed by the Earth's surface and the ionosphere.

Rune Bosse: www.runebosse.com
Anna Back: www.annabak.dk

The exhibition is supported by
 
Exhibition period:
05. April - 05. May 2018
Opening hours: Thursday - Friday at. 14-17, or by appointment.

I am happy to announce that I have been selected to participate in the JCE biennale for 2017-2019.  The JCE Biennale is above all a network linking different European cities concerned with promoting the work of their country’s young artists as well as allowing these artists’ cultural actions to be known beyond their borders. Each country is represented by a curator whose responsibility it is to select eight young artists who will participate in the JCE Biennale by presenting one of their artworks. Once the artworks of each country have been assembled, the JCE Biennale takes the shape of a large traveling collective exhibit which settles down in each of the partner cities over the course of two consecutive years.

The first exhibition and official opening of JCE will be at Le Beffroi  in Montrouge, France,  Wednesday Oct 11th From 18.00 to 23.00.

http://www.biennalejce.com/en/home/

OPEN: 15.09-05.10.2017

Opening friday 10^th september 17:00-21:00

at:
C4 Projects
Dybbølsgade 60, 1721 København V
www.c4projects.dk

Everything is fluid and in an eternal process, everything changes over time, changing shape, mass and expression depending on the impact of the circumstances. It moves and transforms, sometimes into an entirely unrecognizable form. Most processes are completely out of our control; It may feel anxiety-provoking, but on the other hand; it can also be soothing to know that change is always possible, nothing is static and forever.

Metamorphis works with concepts such as change, transformation, fear and deliverance. The exhibition seizes the cyclical as the foundation and the desire for - or understanding of – that everything that seems paralyzed and static can change; that everything moves and transforms over time.

Exhibition event: 

“This too will pass”

Sound-performance with Jullie Hjetland and Mikael Tobias

Thursday 28th september at 19.00 

17th june – 6th august 2017

Exhibeting artists: Anna Bak, Sidsel Carré, Signe Frederiksen, Christine Overvad Hansen, Absalon Kirkeby, Heine Thorhauge Mathiasen, Jens Settergren og Emil Toldbod.

[UDEN TITEL 17] - [WITHOUT TITLE 17] is an ambitious exhibition with new produced works from eight younger talented Danish artists, who all is educated from recognized art academies. They are all carefully selected and invited to produce works that have either been created or incorporated into the special framework of Kunsthal NORD’s exhibition spaces.

The artists have gained recognition for their graduation pieces, and several of them have exhibited works at renowned museum and gallery exhibitions, as well as artist-oriented project rooms. Thus, they are already on their way to characterize the contemporary art scene in Denmark as well as abroad.

The aim of [WITHOUT TITLE 17] is to create courageous and evolving clashes between young visual artists from different academies and with different geographical backgrounds. At the same time, we would like to challenge the North Jutland audience with the new experimental art with its various art practices and expressions.

"Kunsthal NORD is the region's experimental platform for current contemporary art and our task is also to offer some of the country's more untested talents invaluable experience and a welcome boost," says Henrik Broch-Lips, head of Kunsthal NORD.

‘Out to sea’: a reality check
The travelling exhibition called ‘Out to Sea?’ was designed by the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich. It confronts us with the consequences of using plastics and shows us that we will need a great deal of creativity to tackle the problem.

‘Liquid mountain’: visions of the natural versus the artificial
The second part of ‘Dossier plastic’ is ‘Liquid mountain’. ‘Liquid mountain’ encourages us to look at the issue of plastic waste from a different and broader perspective based on contemporary art. Guest curators Heske ten Cate and Hanne Hagenaars chose the laboratory – the source of the material – as their point of departure. That is where plastics originated and it may also possibly be where creative solutions can be thought up. After all, the problems are caused not so much by the materials themselves as by the actions of humans.

The guest curators invited the artists Anna Bak, Paul Beumer, Karin van Dam and Müge Yilmaz to use their own visions of “the natural versus the artificial” to create a statement in laboratory format.

Simon Starling 'Autoxylopyrocycloboros'The exhibition starts with a visual metaphor. The series of slides entitled Autoxylopyrocycloboros (2006) shows us the artist himself sailing in a wooden steam boat on Loch Long in Scotland. The vessel’s engine is fuelled with wood that comes from the structure of the boat itself. It is therefore being consumed, little by little, in order to make forward progress. From the very beginning, the inevitable tragic end of the vessel and its crew is clear.

It is no coincidence that the artist chose Loch Long, the place where Great Britain houses the submarines that carry its nuclear warheads. The name Autoxylopyrocycloboros is a reference to Ouroboros, the mythological serpent eating its own tail.

Opening 9 December 2016

Valkhof Museum, Nijmegen

Exhibeting artists: Anna Bak, Brendan Earley, Fiona Kelly, Juha Pekka Matias Laakkonen, Richard Long, Helen Mirra, Ria Pacquée, herman de vries, Walker & Walker.

curated by Chris Clarke and Pádraic E. Moore

23 July - 6 November 2016

I Went to the Woods looks at how artists have experienced and portrayed their surroundings in the course of walks, journeys and aimless wanderings. Featuring works by Irish and international artists, the exhibition explores the artist as a drifter, nomad, and traveller, who captures the external environment through the careful observation of their surroundings and the collection of materials, objects and images.

In this way, the artists in I Went to the Woods epitomise a sense of rugged individualism and romantic idealism, a worldview expressed in Henry David Thoreau's statement that gives its title to the exhibition: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

An extensive programme of curated events, performances, lectures, and educational activities takes place at the Glucksman during the exhibition run.

The exhibition has been supported by The Arts Council of Ireland, Danish Arts Foundation, Embassy of Denmark, Ireland, the Flemish Agency for Art and Heritage and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation.

I am very pleased to have been choosen for the 6 month artist in residency program in Rio De janeiro, the program is supported by The Danish Art Council and the Brazilian art Institute Capacete. From March to September I will be travelling Brazil and participate in various events, workshop and lectures together with the other participants from the Capacete program. To follow more of my adventures please look up my blog: www.annabakart.blogspot.com

Anna Bak and Anne Munnecke have a common interest in the fascination of systems, holy geometry and the human errors that occur in work production. System and failure are two sides of the same coin. If you first have claimed that there is a system, the possibility of faults also exists. The error in the system can be of great irritation, a harmful element that breaks with the order, but can for the same reason also be a great relief to the eye and give a notion that nothing is flawless.

In Arabic carpet making it is a tradition to weave a single mistake in the oriental rugs, because only Allah is perfect. And just as people, nature sometimes makes mistakes as well. In the biological world  failure is a a key element in evolutionary history. Evolution is driven by genetic mutations, some are good and improves our chances of survival, while others provide poorer survival conditions, and eventually disappear from our genes.

Systems can be guidelines, methods and dogmas to work from. They may be effective to use as a working tool. But most often interesting and pioneering things happen when exceptions occurs and unexpected results will show.

The exhibition's title is a quote taken from Moby Dick by Herman Melville and refers to whaling related philosophical considerations. Captain Ahab's hunt for the great white whale, is an image of man's desire and pursuit to full control. In Ahab's system, Moby Dick must be destroyed before there can be balance in his world again. The novel's form, professionals has described as a patchwork of different genres, images and styles that pop up in random order. Melville wanted it all, but never attended the whole or the form-rounded work. Something that is quite well in line with the theme and the works of this exhibition.

In this exhibition Bak and Munnecke has chosen to display a number of works which are all rooted in the interest of systems. And the love of the errors that occur in the workflow. The works are not made in collaboration and therefore gives a good impression of their individual practices. The diversity of the two artists approach to the subject creates a meditative space where the individual works all become part of a greater dialogue on systems and the appreciation of mistakes.

Huset for Kunst og Design website

Address:
Huset for Kunst og Design
Nørrebrogade 1
7500 Holstebro
Tlf. +45 97 42 18 24
Open:
Friday  12-16
Saturday and Sunday  11-17

I am happy to have been selected for a two-month residency at Viborg Kunsthal. In november-december 2015 I will be one of the two selected artists for the Artist in residency program connected to Viborg Kunsthal. The residency is open for international artist and has a annual open call. See more HERE

I am pleased to announce the release of my first book publication; “Wilderness Survival – A guide to the aesthetics of Survivalism” a conceptual art publication published through the Dutch publishing house and exhibition space Onomatopee, (www.onomatopee.net).

The book can be purchased through Onomatopee here: http://www.onomatopee.net 

And in Copenhagen through:

-1 bookstore, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning

Motto, Charlottenborg

Gl. Strand bookstore

As well as Onomatopees distributors, see website

Editor: Anna Bak

Texts by:

Anna Bak

Niels Henriksen

Francois Dey

Joris Lindhout

Padraic E. Moore

Copy-editor: Şeyma Bayram

Images: Anna Bak and Marie Grønkær

Design: Marie Grønkær

Lithography and Printing: Art Libro / Drukkerij Roelofs BV

location:
Onomatopee project space and book shop
Willemstraat 27
5611 HB Eindhoven

an exhibition, book launch and new performance 

October 17 - November 15th 
Open Thursday to Sunday 12:00-17:00

SPECIAL OPENING NEW SPACE, MULTIPLE EXHIBITIONS:
Saturday october 24th, 16:00 

SPECIAL OPENING HOURS
Every day, 11:00 to 19:00, during Dutch Design Week (17-25 October) 

PERFORMANCE ANNA BAK
18 October at a special obscure location (meeting point at Onomatopee Willemstraat 17, bring your bikes for a short bike tour), time to be announced

www.okcorral.dk

You are warmly invited to the Van Eyck Open Studios. Just like last year, we are keeping open house to show you with pride and enthusiasm what we have been doing. The participants are displaying their work in their studios, the projects of the Van Eyck Mirror and the Hubert Van Eyck Academie are showcased as well as the work of the poets and writers-in-residence and the Van Eyck Collection.
 
You’re welcome on Friday 6 March from 17:00 – 19:00 for the festive opening and on Saturday 7 March from 10:00 – 17:00.

We are very much looking forward to welcoming you and presenting you a programme that is filled to the brim with presentations, talks and performances!

 Van EycK

Academieplein 1
6211 KM Maastricht

The Farm is an equal and temporary society that is focused on production. The Farm is devoted to the practice of making, discussing and organising art & design through experiment. The Farm can be a holding of any size, and take place at any location. The Farm can be operated by designers, artists, theorists or writers. In fact by anyone.

The first edition of The Farm will take place at Jan Van Eyck Academie in form of a 3-­day workshop (27^th-30^th october 2014) focussing on the toipic of FAILURE. This workshop is only open for Jan Van Eyck participants and special invited guests, but you are welcome to join us for the thursday presentation and the Open Farm, thursday the 30^th october.

For more information, documentation of the projects and future The Farm projects see; http://jointhefarm.tumblr.com/

Koldinghus is a Danish royal castle dated back to 13th century. Today the restored castle functions as a museum containing collections of furniture from the 16th century to present, Roman and Gothic church culture, older Danish paintings, crafts focused on ceramics and silver and shifting thematized exhibitions.

This autumn the museum has invited 17 young Danish artist to rediscover the castle, to present works inspired by the history, collection or architecture of the castle.

Artists exhibiting at Zimmer Frei:
Jacob Tækker, Anders Werdelin, Anna Bak, Mia Helmer, Michael Würtz Overbeck, Niels Pugholm, Timo Andersen, Ulla Bech-Bruun, Anders Scrmn Meisner, Dan Stockholm, Nana Bastrup og Matvey Slavin, Lotte Agger, Mie Lund, Eske Rex, Nanna Riis Andersen, Søren Behnke, Nina Saunder. 

The exhibition opens friday the 3rd October 2014, and will be open until 30th November 2014.

This summer i have been invited to participate in the danish festival "Sejerø Festival". The festival goes on for 4 days and is placed on a small island in the middle of Denmark and is a beautiful combination of art, music, architecture and nature. I am really looking forward to getting out to the island and start working on what hopefully becomes an interesting sound-installation.

"Unfortunately" the Festival is so popular that tickets are already sold out, but check out the website and maybe be ready for next year, pretty sure i will be back there too.

http://sejero-festival.dk/

On my way north to Denmark i will stop by Berlin to check out this years Berlin Biennial. For more details and pictures on this, keep an eye on the blog: http://annabakart.blogspot.dk/

I am happy to have been accepted at the recognized institute. For the next year I will be working in this place in Maastricht, Netherlands. I feel privileged and exited for this opportunity and looking forward to sharing with you what will come from this.

http://www.janvaneyck.nl/