19 April – 1 November 2023
VERONICA HODGES – UNDER THE TREE
The renowned American installation artist Veronica Hodges opens a new series of exhibitions in Ordrupgaard’s greenhouse with a tremendously beautiful allegory of the fleeting nature of life.
Ordrupgaard’s greenhouse dating from 1921 has regained its original position in the eastern part of the parkland following a sweeping renovation financed by the foundation Villum Fonden. It now re-emerges as a hothouse for contemporary art with a three-year exhibition programme where a new artist will create a site-specific work every year directing focus at climate and sustainability issues.
Veronica Hodges (b.1972) will be kicking off the new exhibition series with her installation Under the Tree. The work shows a gigantic spring-blossoming tree, filling the greenhouse to breaking point with hand-coloured paper flowers and a trunk of interwoven branches covered with birch veneer. Among the floral splendour, we soon glimpse the first dead leaves, and flowers and small seeds have dropped to the floor. This makes the installation an emblem of the transitoriness that not only the seasons but also humanity itself are constantly subject to. A bench stands underneath the blossoming crown, and the work elicits reflection and mental recharging in correlation with nature. Hodges herself talks about ’healing’.
With the passage of time and exposure to the sun, the colours will fade and the materials slowly deteriorate. When, on bright spring days, the work will appear to perfectly mirror the blossoming fruit trees surrounding the greenhouse, it will appear increasingly grotesque in tandem with seasonal progression. Thus, the work opens countless associations and thoughts may easily wander to the destructive consequences of man taking over nature.
Hodges currently carries out research for a PhD thesis at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, on the potential of art to change the climate discourse. The thesis is based on her own works, and Under the Tree will form part of her research work.
The work comprises 4000 flowers folded from recycled paper and branches from the woodland surrounding Ordrupgaard, plus an iron frame and birch veneer.
EXHIBITIONS IN THE GREENHOUSE 2023–25
The greenhouse exhibitions have already been scheduled for the coming three years (2023–2025) and will be open during the summer season. In 2024 featuring Rune Bosse and in 2025 the artist duo Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg.
GREENHOUSE
The greenhouse, originally a palm house, formed part of the founder couple’s greenhouse complex in the extensive kitchen and pleasure gardens established by Valdemar Fabricius Hansen, city head gardener, when the main house was built during the period 1916–18.
Wishing to re-establish the greenhouse as a central and active part of the overall museum space at Ordrupgaard, the house has undergone a sweeping renovation. Moreover, it has been reverted to its original position in the fruit garden in the eastern part of the parkland leading to the architect Finn Juhl’s House.
ABOUT VERONICA HODGES
Veronica Hodges, who has been creating installation art since 2007, is originally a trained scenographer from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Among the most remarkable decorative projects, mention should be made of Amalienborg to mark H. M. the Queen’s fiftieth jubilee, Marmorkirken, Arken Museum of Modern Art, and the Hans Christian Andersen Museum. Concurrently with her artistic work, Hodges is doing her PhD thesis at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design.
The exhibition is kindly supported by:
Ny Carlsbergfondet
15. Juni Fonden
William Demant Fonden
Inge og Asker Larsens Fond til støtte af almennyttige formål
Dansk Tennis Fond
Ernst B. Sund Fonden
The restoration of the greenhouse is generously supported by Villum Fonden
Veronica Hodges, Under the Tree, 2023. Photo Anders Sune Berg
Veronica Hodges, Under the Tree, 2023. Photo Anders Sune Berg
Veronica Hodges, Under the Tree, 2023. Photo Anders Sune Berg