The exhibition Bycatch was created with reference to Nikolaj Kunsthal’s past as a maritime church named after Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors.
Using the fishing industry as a thematic frame, Rune Bering investigates the cycle of destruction, death and rebirth through a series of new works. Bering is particularly concerned with systems which he examines minutely and reinterprets in new forms that relate physically to the space in which they are displayed. At the Upper Gallery he has entered into a dialogue with the history and architecture of the building by working sculpturally with fish traps as catching nets.
Bycatch takes as its point of departure the story of the fish as a symbol of the fishing industry, which today has a decisive importance for the critical state of the oceans. With this, the artist articulates the complex contexts that today are associated with fishing and allows the exhibition to be an account of both catching and being caught – not only in terms of fishing but also in the optimisation processes of the modern world and technological development of which we are all part.
”In this exhibition, I work sculpturally with emotions which I believe are characteristic of our time. We know that we live in a way that can’t last, but at the same time the feeling is that we can’t change it. We live in structures that interfere with each other and that are too complex to really understand, change and get out of. It feels like we are caught in our own net”. – Rune Bering, 2024
Source:
Nikolaj Kunsthal
Nikolaj Kunsthal