P’ for Perspective at Simian

Artists: Inge Lehmann, Paul Pfeiffer, Tora Schultz, Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, Bradley Kronz, Aia Sofia Coverley Turan, Kasper Hesselbjerg, Lea Porsager, Jens Axel Beck, Ester Fleckner, Mads Westrup, Jens Hüls Funder, Bonnie Camplin, Dagmar Moldovanu, Amelie von Wulffen, Michael E. Smith, Poul Gernes

Exhibition title: P’ for Perspective

Venue: Simian, Copenhagen, Denmark

Date: August 27 – October 9, 2022

Photography: GRAYSC / All images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Simian, Copenhagen

Note: Exhibition booklet is available here

The title “P’ for Perspective” is inspired by the Danish seismologist and geophysicist Inge Lehmann (1888-1993). Lehmann was unique; a passionate scientist whose work and private life merged into a singular and dedicated vision, focused on the reading and understanding of the forces of the inner Earth. Lehmann had a particular talent for examining seismographic registrations of earthquakes and movements from within the planet. Her readings were based as much on idiosyncratic intuition and personal interpretation, as they were on rational and categorical analyses. A different type of imagination was needed to challenge the status quo, and dream up a new understanding of the world.

In 1936 Lehmann published her seminal paper, simply titled “P’”. The paper contained recordings of distant earthquakes with certain types of seismic waves, that travel through Earth and its core, so-called P-waves. Her readings showed anomalous characteristics in these, meaning that the waves reflected on a different and denser material structure than the liquid centre presumed to be the core of the planet. This eventually led to the groundbreaking discovery that Earth has a solid core inside a molten outer core. Essential knowledge that is now integrated in every calculation and model of our planet.

P’ for Perspective looks at shifting scientific viewpoints and new cultural attitudes in our contemporary time. A volatile era characterised by a massive and constant flow of information and knowledge sharing. In a cyclical manner, the exhibition considers how such input is initially generated, mediated, and absorbed, and how it might end up being reexamined and used anew. Through crisis and triumph, the mundane, the enlightened and the cosmic, artworks function as containers that capture and materialise the energy of a certain period or a mere fleeting moment in that time. They signify the presence of a conscious observation.

The exhibition portrays life in motion, as images, objects and time-lapses; by means of incorporating both microscopic and macroscopic and internal and external optics, by reaching into ourselves and into the planet, and by stretching our imagination and our technology into the cosmos. As we traverse the globe and its elements, we bind our individual bodies to its physical dimensions across widely dispersed coordinates and increments of time, while a globalised network can seem to exponentially bring us closer to a common unified mind and core.

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

P’ for Perspective, 2022, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen