Copenhagen Contemporary

Unique partnership: New exhibition stops time, speaks to the senses

Copenhagen Contemporary presents Celeste, a new site-specific exhibition uniting powerful artistic forces from different corners of the art world. Visual artist Lea Guldditte Hestelund, composer August Rosenbaum, composer Cæcilie Trier and director Ea Verdoner together have created a poetic, interdisciplinary installation. Weaving together sound, sculpture, video, scent and performance, this visual and musical narrative invites visitors to immerse and lose themselves. Featuring singing stones, mirrored bodies and darkness, Celeste explores themes of time, bodily experience and connectivity. Two years in the making, Celeste also includes a series of live performances and an LP.

Celeste marks the meeting of the four distinct practices of Cæcilie Trier, August Rosenbaum, Lea Guldditte Hestelund and Ea Verdoner. The exhibition comprises sound, sculpture, video, fragrance and performance, which merge within the exhibition space as an immersive installation.

An ambient soundtrack triggers vibrations within the floor, which guide the audience through a course of stones, vocals and piano, while an ambiguous fragrance lingers in the air. Stone sculptures lay on the soft ground, centred around a circular crater. They appear formerly connected, like a torso torn-apart, while at the same time, as selfcontained individual parts, different entities from an unknown place. Evocative of a human shield or animal shell for bodily protection, they recall the ability to carry and be carried. In various ways, they evoke protection, embrace, and self-defence.

Two films are projected simultaneously onto opposing curved walls. Two human figures are discernible, lying motionlessly, waiting. Their bodies and gazes turn to face each other in an attempt at uniting their voices in a prolonged, mirrored duet. In a song based on the poem Orta or One Dancing by Gertrude Stein, their voices fill the space between them, conveying the story of a person, a daughter, a dancer, a lover, a mother; an existence undergoing constant change. The installation draws the eye to a horizontal perspective as sculptures and bodies presume prostrate positions on the floor. Celeste insists on its own time and perspective, emphasising individual interconnectedness to others; things and beings - via tempo, position, scale and accessibility.

Working between performance and installation the artists use a variety of materials, such as stone, voice, sound and movement, creating an extension in time and a sense of transience. Celeste is a slow work in several layers, changing and repeating itself over time. At a time when collectivity and mobility have ground to a halt, Celeste makes us aware of our existential vulnerability and the essential importance of community.

The installation unfolds in a loop lasting thirty minutes

Performances
During the duration of the exhibition, a series of performances will expand the exhibition's exploration of time and presence. Here, the artists will animate the space along with a solo dancer. These performances constitute a central point of tension where the installation is transformed into a cohesive circuit of relations between human beings and other presences, between the audience and a soloist, culminating in a concert by Trier and Rosenbaum.

Performance dates
July 1st 20:00 p.m. - 21:00 p.m.
July 2nd 17:00 p.m.- 18:00 p.m.
July 3rd 17:00 p.m. - 18:00 p.m.
July 3rd 20:00 p.m. - 21:00 p.m.

Additional performances in August and September will be announced. Watch the Copenhagen Contemporary website for updates.

Performers: Cæcilie Trier, August Rosenbaum, Olivia Riviere.

About the artists

August Rosenbaum (b.1987) is a pianist and composer. His latest album, Celeste, is released on Posh Isolation with CTM. As a composer for film, art, and theatre, Rosenbaum has composed works for the Royal Danish Theatre, Palais de Tokyo, France, Metropolitan Museum of Art and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) US and SMK, DK. As a songwriter, Rosenbaum has worked with artists including Kim Gordon, Coco O., Kendrick Lamar, Robin Hannibal, Zeena Parkins, and Kindness.

Cæcilie Trier (b.1982) is a musician and composer living in Copenhagen. Trier releases solo material under the name of CTM; her latest album, Celeste, is released on Posh Isolation with August Rosenbaum. Trier is also involved in an array of musical and cross-art collaborations.

Lea Guldditte Hestelund (b.1983) is a visual artist educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. In her artistic practice, Hestelund often creates physical fictions manifested via total installations and cross-art collaborative processes where the sculptural body also comprises literature, fragrance, or music. Recent shows include Art Sonje Center, South Korea, Eduardo Secci, Italy, Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art, Denmark. She has taken part in group exhibitions at Copenhagen Contemporary, Arken Museum of Modern Art, both Denmark, the National Museum of Stettin, Poland, Fused Space San Francisco, USA, and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark.

Ea Verdoner (b.1985) is a modern dancer, film director, and visual artist educated at the Danish National School of Performing Arts, the International Center of Photography in New York, and Roskilde University, Denmark. Verdoner works interdisciplinary with film, photography, and choreography in works that often cross art forms.

This exhibition is supported by
Det Obelske Familiefond
Bikubenfonden
Statens Kunstfond
Beckett-Fonden
Knud Højgaards Fond
William Demant Fonden
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansen Fond
Ege Carpets
Juhl-Sørensen