Sabine Wedege (b. 1993, Aarhus, Denmark, she/her)
Education
2015-2021: Jutland Art Academy, BFA/MFA
2020: Writing School in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, Forlaget Gladiator
2018-2019: University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Fine Arts, MFA
Residencies
2021-2022: SUSTAIN - Artist Digital Exchange (Aarhus Billedkunstcenter/Aarhus Center for Visual Art, Castlefield Gallery), Aarhus/Manchester, Denmark/UK
2022: Foundation Anne Grete, BKF, Fox-Amphoux, France
2019: Belgrade AIR (Center424), Belgrade, Serbia
Upcoming
2022: Heksetrappen/The Witches Stairs, Heksetrappen (Heibergsgade/Strandvejen), Aarhus, Denmark
2022: TBA, Center424, Belgrade, Serbia
2022: What Could Should Curating Do (WCSCD), Belgrade, Serbia
2023: TBA, BKF, Copenhagen, Denmark
Selected solo exhibitions
2020: 0, RUM 10, ORAUM
2019: Ø-острво, KC Magacin, Belgrade, Serbia
2019: Navigate River, Art Room 1000fryd, Aalborg, Denmark
2017: 777, The Demo Room at Galleri Image, Galleri Miel, AMOK, Aarhus, Denmark
2015: Baby it’s midnigt, UNDERFLADEN/Mørke Dage Festival, Tomrummet, Aalborg, Denmark
Selected group exhibitions
2022: LANDING 2022, Kunsthal Kongegaarden, Korsør, Denmark
2021: BAIR retrospective exhibition part 1, Center424, Belgrade, Serbia
2021: Present Tense, Afgang 2021, Jutland Art Academy, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denamrk
2021: Matrikel Uden Kroppe/RUNDGANG TV 2021, Jutland Art Academy, Aarhus, Denmark
2020: *Letter*, Jutland Art Academy, Art Weekend Aarhus, Splab, Aarhus, Denmark
2019: Poezija I Kreativno Pisanje, Dev9t Alhemija Festival, Belgrade, Serbia
2019: Earth Day Exhibition, Center424, Belgrade, Serbia
2018: Parliament of owls, murder of crows, 3rd year exhibition, Jutland Art Academy, Splab, Aarhus City Hall, Aarhus, Denmark
2016: Interiør, 2nd year exhibition, Jutland Art Academy, Vesterbro Torv, Aarhus, Denmark
2016: Klumpglomerate, Jutland Art Academy, Art Weekend Aarhus, Splab, Aarhus, Denmark
2016: KP16, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
2015: Den første, 1st year exhibition, Jutland Art Academy, Splab, Aarhus, Denmark
2015: Mørke Dage Festival, Aalborg, Denmark
Curatorial
Founder/curator at RUM два
Founder/editor at Forlaget TEGALROF
Commission/public
2019: U dodiru sa (Vane Živadinović Bor), MSUB/MoCAB, Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
2018: Presented at Fijuk prodavnica/Fijuk sajam, Belgrade, Serbia
2018: Paintings/exhibition in the movie “Hunger”, Dionysus Media/Zentropa, Aarhus, Denmark
2016: Permanent decoration, TAPE, Aarhus, Denmark
Readings/performances
2019: Reading, Poetry Event #00777, AMOK, Aarhus, Denmark
2019: Performance lecture, Energy, ORGANON Exhibition Space, Odense, Denmark
2016: Reading, PerformanceRUM: DADA 100år, Spanien 19C, Aarhus, Denmark
2016: Reading, nORD, Nordic Literature Festival, Helsingør, Denmark
Publications/contributions
sustainartists.info, online zine and blog, SUSTAIN, 2022
O s.1,1, publication, Forlaget TEGALROF, 2021
0, book, ORAUM, 2020
Hvedekorn 4, 2018, magazine for poetry and art, Rosinante & Co., 2018
Hvedekorn 3, 2016, magazine for poetry and art, Rosinante & Co., 2016
Teaching/workshop/talks
2022: Kunsthal Kongegaarden, artist talk, Korsør, Denmark
2021: Aarhus Art School, teaching/workshop/artist talk, Aarhus, Denmark
2019: Belgrade AIR, artist talk, Belgrade, Serbia
Grants
2022: PUKK
2021: Statens Kunstfond/The Danish Arts Foundation (production grant)
2019: Den Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Stiftelse
2019: Ny Carlsberg Fondet
2017: Ny Carlsberg Fondet
Member of
Billedkunstnernes Forbund (BKF)
Organisationen for Kunstnere, Kuratorer og Kunstformidlere (UKK)
Foreningen for Samtidskunst (FSK)
Center424
Press
Afgang 2021, interview, I DO ART
Ung Kunst, interview, Art Weekend Aarhus
Artist Statement
Works primarily with sculpture, but also with text, video, and sound – used in parallel and in contrast to each other. I research how to harmonize concept and material by putting associations in a new frame of references. Preoccupied with history versus topicality, to connect connections from the past to contemporary issues and questions.
It about creating a space, a mood, where the elements can be allowed to speak together – ranging from paganism, satanism, occultism, splatter, folklore, traditions, art history, prehistoric art to intersectional feminism, racism, capitalism, consumerism, ecology, conspiracy theories, landscapes, patterns, and systems. Heavy and lots of references and stories that are combined with the material, thereby “composing the composition” with symbols, motifs, textures, and colors – where you work with the material both as classic sculpture work, but also experimenting with salt dough, wax, and rope. The material is like an extra layer that encapsulates the works’s references, leaving it as a fused constellation that almost makes its own newly created iconography and carries its own symbolism in a newer frame. A kind of overload, materialism and cultures mingling, exactly as a reflection of society.
My practice is research based, archive, literature, the internet, sketches, notes, etc. In my process, there is a distinction between source material, where it comes from, credibility and a permit for everything can be archive material regardless. For me, and for our contemporaries, we get information from various sources, and I take it directly into my way of working. That’s why I use both sources from local historical archives and non-fiction, but also SoMe platforms like TikTok and Pinterest – which all carries their very own phenomena and realities.
Strives for a certain recognizability in the works, which should be inclusive for the viewer and to reach as broadly as possible. A quest to demystify, with an awareness of the process can be exclusive, whereas the dissemination of this must be able to be inclusive – the viewer must be able to have an immediate approach to the work. My works are a distorted reality of familiar objects, tools, and trends in addition humor plays a significant role, as well as kitch and pop aesthetics to the complex reference ensemble.
- Sabine Wedege
Sabine Wedege’s interdisciplinary practice moves between sculpture, text, video, and sound, used in parallel and in contrast with each other. Drawing from a variety of references, including esoterism, environmental issues and iconography, her works morph from connections between often very disparate issues found in (art) history and in our present world. Inspired by narratives as diverse as Land Art and Constructivism, prehistoric art and Yugoslav darkwave, her practice takes unexpected detours. From geoglyphs to synthetic red blood in Grand Guignol theatre, from microplastic-filled fishes to dark rooms of neon graffiti and Israeli 90s punk, all the way to commercials, memes, and cannibalistic capitalism.
Through her works, Wedege investigates the potential of material and concept to reconcile through wacky associations, freed from epistemological structures. Reading present issues through historical references, while playing with the idea that formal elements can take shape through a variety of cultural references, the artist exacerbates contemporary tendencies of cutting and pasting disparate sources to create a pastiche of juxtapositions. This approach resists the concept of ‘finished form’ and instead operates experimentally and cyclically, welcoming repetitions and transformations. The task of demystifying this idiosyncratic approach of incorporating research is entrusted to a certain recognizability of form that allows the viewer to intuitively approach the works beyond the complexity of their references.
- South into North
(Francesca Astesani & Julia Rodrigues)
© 2022 https://www.sabinewedege.com/