EarthDrivE
Site specific exhibition
date
2025
LOCATION
Valdemars Slot Art Foundation
produced in partnership with
Photographed by
funding support from
Statens Kunstfond
EN
For 2025, the inaugural season of Valdemars Slot’s contemporary art programme, Pernille With Madsen leads us on a dizzying journey through the vast Riding Hall in a three-part installation. Retaining traces of its past – as a performance hall and grain store – the site becomes a frame through which to explore the ways we understand historical spaces. With Madsen reimagines the space as the stage for an archeological dig, excavating the remains of three grain silos. By hinting at a huge, hidden figure, this ‘fragment’ of a figure unsettles the expected relationship between a contemporary artwork and viewer. If this sculpture hints at an object so large that it can be glimpsed only piecemeal, With Madsen also draws us in on a miniature scale. A group of knotted, clawed forms recalling primordial creatures or homunculi are displayed inside a vitrine. With Madsen references Renaissance wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities which, by collecting rare specimens from across the globe, was supposed to symbolise its owner’s power. These tiny sculptures mock such presumptions – hinting instead towards magical unknowns, waiting to be found. Slipping between illusion and actuality, sculpture and relic, With Madsen unpicks conventions to “massage the imagination”
In disorientating contrast to the raw site below, an LED screen sits perched on a balcony. Buildings, facades, and smokestacks glide past in a continuous stream - stitched together into an unfolding collage with no fixed perspective. In this work, Madsen constructs a disorienting visual landscape where movement, scale, and direction constantly shift. Familiar forms surface momentarily, only to dissolve again, as if caught in a dream or an endless scroll. Blending analog techniques with digital rhythms, the video becomes a kind of hand-built visual effects machine - challenging how we read space, recognize images, and orient ourselves in a world in motion.
DK
I 2025, i åbningssæsonen for Valdemars Slots program for samtidskunst, fører Pernille With Madsen os på en svimlende rejse gennem den enorme ridehal i en tredelt installation. Stedet bibeholder spor fra sin fortid – som både opvisningshal og kornlager – og bliver en ramme, hvorigennem vi kan udforske de måder, vi forstår historiske rum på.
With Madsen genindbilder rummet som scenen for en arkæologisk udgravning, hvor resterne af tre kornsiloer graves frem. Ved at antyde en enorm, skjult figur forstyrrer dette ”fragment” af en skikkelse det forventede forhold mellem et moderne kunstværk og beskueren. Hvis denne skulptur antyder et objekt, der er så stort, at det kun kan glimtes stykvis, drager With Madsen os samtidig ind i en miniatureskala. En gruppe af knudrede, klo-agtige former, der minder om forhistoriske væsner eller homunculi, er udstillet i en montre. With Madsen refererer her til renæssancens wunderkammer (kunstkammer), som ved at indsamle sjældne genstande fra hele kloden skulle symbolisere ejerens magt. Disse små skulpturer spotter sådanne antagelser – og peger i stedet mod magiske ukendtheder, der venter på at blive fundet. I feltet mellem illusion og virkelighed, skulptur og relikvie, piller With Madsen konventionerne fra hinanden for at ”massere fantasien”.
I desorienterende kontrast til det rå rum nedenfor findes en LED-skærm placeret på en balkon. Bygninger, facader og skorstene glider forbi i en kontinuerlig strøm – syet sammen til en udfoldende collage uden fast perspektiv. I dette værk konstruerer Madsen et desorienterende visuelt landskab, hvor bevægelse, skala og retning konstant skifter. Velkendte former dukker op et øjeblik for blot at opløses igen, som var de fanget i en drøm eller et endeløst scroll. Ved at blande analoge teknikker med digitale rytmer bliver videoen til en form for håndbygget visuel effektmaskine, der udfordrer, hvordan vi aflæser rum, genkender billeder og orienterer os i en verden i bevægelse.
Process
