Jens Settergren

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About The Work

For the 2024 CHART IN TIVOLI exhibition, Wilson Saplana Gallery proposes the site-specific sculpture Harvest (2024) by Danish artist Jens Settergren. In Denmark, the straw of wheat has a clear symbolic value as it, to most people, is instantly recognizable as an indicator of summer. When it sways in the wind sweeping across the landscape it evokes feelings of serenity and nourishment. It is placed on the banks of the Tivoli Lake, flanked by the mill and The St. Georg III Frigate, among the colourful flowers as an addition to the towering amusements. But its presence enhances more than the charming idealisation of Denmark present in the park.

This over-dimensioned wheat straw is rendered in steel; it is rigid, and the stem is stripped of leaves and joints. Unnerving but equally seductive and enchanting - with its metallic lacquered colours that reflect the light and change as you move around the sculpture - it is presented as a piece of constructed nature as if it’s been domesticated and cultivated into something grotesque, an omen of farming technologies and of an understanding of nature as but a resource to be controlled. Its fantasy reveals the reality of present and, most likely, future industrialised agriculture, and the imaginaries that this future evokes.

About The Artist

Jens Settergren (DK, b. 1989) explores contemporary interconnections of nature and technology and their effect on, and connection to, images. Settergren is interested in the power they hold, seeking out both the grand images and icons, while also placing everyday objects and commercial images in an unfamiliar context.

Jens Settergren is represented by Wilson Saplana.

Find out more about CHART in Tivoli 2024