Special tour and viewing of artwork by Arendse Krabbe

at Folketinget [The Danish Parliment building]

27 November 2019

In connection with and as part of the extended programme for the exhibition 'Learning by Doing: A Politics of Practice', SixtyEight Art Institute invited a small group to an artist-guided viewing of Arendse Krabbe's artwork commission for the meeting room of Alternativet [Alternative Party], located in Folketinget [the Danish Parliament] in Christiansborg Palace.

This special commission by the Folketingets Kunstudvalg [The Parliament's Art Committee] and Alternativet answers the latter's wish for an artwork to preside over their meeting room at Christiansborg, which is an established tradition for all parties. According to the artist, ""[Alternativet] were interested in an art piece that was process based, one including them in the process, and that the artwork should have a physical presence in the meeting room after the process ended," in addition to their wish that the art piece be made by a female artist with a political art practice.

The result came out of a period of three weeks, where the artist, through a series of exchanges with Alternativet, organized a meeting about the key issue of 'ny politisk kultur' / 'new political culture' as part of her idea to 'weave a political discussion' and which took place and was recorded on 18 May, 2017. The sound file was translated into a spectrogram to produce an image and became the material that Arendse Krabbe used to weave a tapestry in collaboration with the weaver Mona Lise Martinussen. The weaving started in June 2017 and the artwork was inaugurated in the Party meeting room in April 2019.

The title of the tapestry is:
'QUESTIONS SHAPE REALITIES - a tapestry of sound in space 2-015 on 18.05.2017'
'SPØRGSMÅL FORMER VIRKELIGHEDER - en vævning af lyden i rum 2-015 den 18.05.2017'

The work consists of:
the tapestry 2,6 m x 2 m
2 sketches 1 m x 1 m
1 ball with bells 6 cm in diameter