The Garden, Birds and a Hedge

This exhibition project was conceived partly as a reaction to the situation of Sølyst Artist in Residence Center in a park as it offers the chance to actually be in an man made ideal landscape in contrast to looking at it from the outside.
The exhibition in Sølyst castle consits of three works of art:
– A picture-collage with thousands of fragments from reproductions of art historical masterpieces, representing a great detailed paradisiac landscape. With a composition of a crowd of motives, which comment on historical as well as art historical events, myths, the good and the evil and life’s cycle.
– A hedge of birds. Different bird species are cut out of bird watching magazines. Thin wood laminate is pasted on card and the birds are combined after the same system used by Charles and Ray Eames for their ‹House of Cards›. The Hebrew word for paradise‘ Pardes‘ actually means hedge, so we may ask ourselves if separating us from somebody and excluding a group of people from their society as such is our definition of Paradise? Are we in a position to look for this state of mind without building up a separation between us and the surrounding world?
– The work ‹ARTIFEX SEMPER BEATUS EST› has a Latin name which means: The artist is always blessed. On a small screen you see pictures of various summer flowers, all found in the grass around Sølyst along with their Latin names and the name of the artist Beatus in a fictitious Latin version. At the same time birds are heard chirping, and if you listen carefully you understand that it actually is Beat Klein, who whistles the sound aspect of the work.
(from press text by Tine Bungaard Quedenbaum, curator SAIR Sølyst)

Installation view: project space Sølyst Castle, Jyderup/Denmark, 2008