Wundkanal
Sabsay Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2018/2019

Kaare Golles unfolds traumas in European history through scabrous, diseased, and beaten away metal fragments of the human body. New solo exhibition by Copenhagen based artist Kaare Golles confronts the resistance of matter, exposing the body as shield, the shell from which we perceive the world and understand our existence in it.

SABSAY is happy to announce the opening of the solo exhibition WUNDKANAL by Kaare Golles. Comprising of sculpture in bronze and resin as well as glass and wood installations, the exhibition is the result of the artist’s ongoing research into traumas of the 20th century; the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Chernobyl disaster.

It has been 32 years since the open-air graphite fire of the Chernobyl accident lofted atomic fragments into the atmosphere. With an existing time frame of more than a hundred thousand years, the reverberations of its destruction and death, fiery and merciless, will be felt for generations to come with active radionuclides scattered around the globe. The Chernobyl disaster marks a catastrophe in time, caused by an inextinguishable fire – the evil light force of nuclear holocaust that has escaped control.

The horrors of 20th century Europe have previously been interpreted by post-war artists, most famously by Anselm Kiefer, and modern sculptors such as Germaine Richier and Alberto Giacometti have made the suffering human figure a symbol of post-war trauma. As contemporary sculptor Golles places himself deliberately in the traditions of the monumental bronze as well as in the synthetic material of resin, but according to the artist the ‘whole’ body is no longer possible to represent in contemporary times. Instead, “the fragment stands for the only realization in my practice, describing man’s shattered and fragmented existence today. Consistently, my works avoid any sentimental aspirations for reconciliation with a world and imagery that rarely escapes extensive, inhuman barbarism,” Golles states.

For Golles the nuclear fire of Chernobyl sinisterly echoes the fire of the mass graves and cremation sites of the Holocaust. There is, the artist seems to imply, an open wound of history, still smouldering, which will take generations to heal. “It is essential to delve into the painful mistakes made before us and introduce changes in our own life time in order to heal the wounds. It is our common responsibility. We can attempt through the aesthetic language of Kaare Golles to learn much more about these catastrophes and perhaps discuss them as a group," says Masha Faurschou, founder of SABSAY. 

- Sabsay Gallery

Photo: David Stjernholm