Artist: Sif Itona Westerberg
Exhibition title: House of Dionysus
Venue: Gether Contemporary, Copenhagen, Denmark
Date: August 21 – September 26, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Gether Contemporary, Copenhagen. Photo: David Stjernholm
Note: Q & A with Sif Itona Westerberg is avalaible here
Gether Contemporary have the great pleasure of announcing Sif Itona Westerberg’s debuting solo exhibition with the gallery “House of Dionysus” which will open Friday 21 August. The exhibition will also be part of this year’s Chart Art Fair, which due to the Corona virus, will take place de-centred in each participating gallery with a special program 28 – 30 August.
“House of Dionysus” will transform the gallery space into a scene of a procession in honour of the greek deity of wine and ecstacy, Dionysus.The cult of Dionysus has been known through wild parties and orgies to represent inhibition and loss of control, which in turn represents a potential for change, where one can become something more and other than oneself. Also the cult represents a deep and mystic connection with nature, something which the modern world has gone to great lengths to suppress, but now once more seems relevant in light of our current environmental and health crisis.
The exhibition will consist of a number of large stone reliefs meticulously carved out by hand arcing back to classical techniques but applied to contemporary industrial materials. The works, made out of aerated concrete pierced by industrial bolts to serve as methods of hanging, create a stark contrast to Itona Westerberg’s refined technique and the classical source material.
Through reworking classical imagery and morphing it with a multitude of different styles and perspectives Sif Itona Westerberg casts a light on the shadowy, subcultural and suppressed sides of humanity and our society, which in our modern rational world has been pushed aside or ignored.
Sif Itona Westerberg is a visual artist, working and living in Copenhagen. She holds a MFA from The Danish Royal Arts Academy. She works primarily within the field of sculpture, from where she examines new ecologies, rela-tions and aesthetics within the anthropocene area.
Itona Westerberg is included in a number of private and public collections hereunder the collection of Malmø Kunstmuseum. She has previously exhibited at, among others; Tranen (DK), Malmø Kunstmuseum (SE), Oluf Høst Museet (DK), Gianni Manhatten (A), Latvian Centre for Contemporary art (LVA) , Den Frie Centre of Con-temporary Art (DK), PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, (RU), Cassandra Cassandra (CND), Museum of Contemporary Art, (RU), The Aros Triennial; The Garden (DK) The Sculpture Triennial: Becoming Human (DK), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (DK)
