Artist: Anna Bak
Exhibition title: Bleak Harvest
Curated by: Tina Anette Madsen
Venue: Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon, Videbæk, Denmark
Date: August 31 – September 29, 2022
Photography: ©Jacob Friis-Holm Nielsen / images courtesy of the artist and Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon
Anna Bak’s solo exhibition in Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon has the title “Bleak Harvest” and illustrates a fictional story about an agricultural community, about their tenacious work to optimize the profit of their crops, and their despair and remorse after the harvest has gone all wrong.
Although the focal point for the exhibition is fictitious, it draws strong references to realistic problematics, such as the negative consequences of genetically modified crops, an industrialized agricultural society and a world that since the 1970’erne yearly has had an over-consumption of natural resources compared to what our planet can re in a year.
The starting point for Anna Bak’s exhibition is based in inspiration from her own upbringing on a pig farm in Denmark in the start 90’s. The efficiency and industrialization of agriculture during the 90’s had big consequences; in 1985 there were 40.000 full-time farmers in Denmark, by 1996 this number was reduced to 28.000, and by 2024 it is believed there is around 7.500 full-time farmers left in Denmark.
The exhibition relates specifically to the area around Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon, as a great part of the region around the city of Videbæk consists of cultivated agricultural land. Moreover, it is not accidental either that the exhibition period falls at the end of August – September, as this is high season for harvesting of the year’s crop.
Bak does not want to point a moral finger towards anyone specific, which is why she has chosen to use aesthetic from classical horror films, new-settler society, and mythical folklore, leaving it open for the viewer to read the exhibition and see the parallels to our current situation. The exhibition manages to create a claustrophobic state of dystopia, at the same time as it contains sensual and poetic and elements, with tactile undertones. These ‘extremes’ create a trembling atmosphere that characterize the entire exhibition.
The elements in the exhibition ranger widely from textile collages to bronze sculptures, ceramic works and linoleum cuts. In this context the ‘noble’ elevated metal – bronze – is used to create sculptures such as spoiled and rotten apples, foul corn and withered plants. Wood and aluminium create sensuous deformed ‘tools’ which stands sharp against the orange field fire painted wall. Lying ‘gently’ on bales of hay, rest distorted poppy seeds, grain and sprouts. Recognizable elements as old used harrows and fence poles, take on new meaning when they are transformed and are included as load-bearing structures in a pedestal that gently carries the wondrous, twisted bronze sculptures. Characteristic for the exhibition is, that it can be seen as story with a theme, where the viewer can tell their own tale and imagine what happens in this connection.
The exhibition is supported by: The Danish Arts Council, The Obelske Familiefond and the Ny Carlsberg Fondet.
–Anna Bak
