Art on the Night of Philosophy

On stage: a goldfinch

Henrik Håkansson created the project BirdConcert Oct. 23, 2005 (Carduelis carduelis) for the Frieze Art Fair in London in 2005. A goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) appeared as a solo singer at the Royal Academy of Music. This evening, the concert hall which is normally a place for classical music, was filled by expectations to be able to listen to the goldfinches own song and repetitive phrase for which it is known, tick tickeli tickelitt. The concert was documented in film, and the edited version BirdConcert (Carduelis carduelis) will be screened for the first time at The Night of Philosophy at Moderna Museet – 12 years after the goldfinch’s performance in London on 23 October, 2005.

The life of a fly

The End, shot in July 2006, chronicles some moments in the life of a fly. As an installation featuring silent film and performance, The End was first presented in 2011 at the Modern Institute in Glasgow, with music by John Coxon. The new film, which will be screed at The Night of Philosophy, is an edited version of the documentation from the Sydney Biennial in 2014, with a soundtrack, accompanied by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Female Voices of VOX. The End was shown as a performance at the Modern Institute in Glasgow in 2011, and as a concert with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra in Monte Carlo in 2016. The End is here shown in its final form as a film for the first time.

Håkansson takes the smallest creatures into the art world

Henrik Håkansson, an artist who graduated from the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, is an amateur biologist who brings nature into the art institutions, often allowing the smallest creatures and insects to take centre stage, both literally and figuratively. He places them before video cameras, amplifiers and spotlights, occasionally together with a symphony orchestra, thereby focusing on the beings with whom we coexist but all too rarely notice.

Long international career

Henrik Håkansson has a long international career, and has participated in dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the Sydney Biennial (2014), the 8th Sharjah Biennial (2007), Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2005), the São Paulo Biennale (2004), and Utopia Station at the Venice Biennale (2003).

Solo and group exhibitions

His works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions by a number of institutions, including Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg (2016); Lunds Konsthall (2012); Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (2010); The Power Plant, Toronto (2009); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico DF (2008); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); De Appel, Amsterdam (2003); Moderna Museet (2003); Secession, Vienna (2002); Kunsthalle Basel (1999); Kunstverein Hamburg (2003); and the Barbican Centre, London (2000).

In 1997, he represented Sweden in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Henrik Håkansson (1968) lives in Berlin.

Performance with music by Pour Nous and visuals by Kliin

Pour Nous plays guitar based drones/ambient music. Loops are built up with guitars drowned in effects together with electronic sounds via laptop. The music is at times unobtrusive, but a crescendo is slowly being built up. Kliin, who also is behind FLiM Stockholm, creates live visuals in close relation to the music.

Curator: Camilla Carlberg