HB381 frames the monochrome terracotta 'Manhattan Portraits' by Karen Bennicke

Danish artist Karen Bennicke interprets cartographic representations of the city and its movement patterns, transforming them into abstract, three-dimensional ceramic forms for the show Manhattan Portraits hosted by the HB381 gallery in Broadway, New York.

Running from September 6 – October 19, 2024, the solo exhibition comprises a new body of sculptural artworks wherein Bennicke employs a methodical process to turn data points describing urban and architectural space into intricate carvings, excavations and overlapping topographies. City streets, urban parks, traffic routes and subway lines are layered on top of one another, condensed into a lingering image of the forces that shaped them. In the end, the ceramic artist's slab-formed sculptures take on the appearance of artefacts or fossils within the exhibition space at HB381, a dedicated gallery for solo artist presentations focusing on contemporary Nordic sculpture and ceramics.

"While each work arises from the implementation of a set of rules, the end result is enigmatic and magnetic, charged with arcane symbolism. The earth-toned terracotta and monochrome geometries prompt philosophical rumination on the city as a set of contested relations; her sculptures suggest that, obscured by time, traffic and constant dynamism, our environment is ultimately unknowable, constantly in a process of formation and sedimentation," mentions the press release shared by Hostler Burrows.

In Manhattan Portraits, Bennicke revisits a project from the late 1970s by architect, writer and educator Bernard Tschumi, titled The Manhattan Transcripts: this collection of diagrams, photographs, drawings and brief texts aimed to explore new perspectives on architecture through narratives of movement. Many of these draw on the conventions of hardboiled fiction, featuring scenes such as a chase in Central Park that ends in murder, a fatal plunge from a skyscraper, a "border crossing" along 42nd Street, and various unusual activities in inner courtyards. By framing these stories within the context of the built environment, Tschumi implies that, in essence, "all architecture ... is about love and death."

Offering a fresh interpretation of the intricate network of streets, piers and subway lines that captivated Tschumi, Manhattan Portraits focuses on nine locations in Lower Manhattan. In it, the Denmark-based sculpture artist brings an emotional depth and sculptural sensibility that diverges from the formalist approach of mapping, yet feels like a natural evolution of Tschumi's earlier work. In the art exhibition, the elongated, angular and precisely crafted ceramic art pieces she creates merge the three realms Tschumi aimed to connect: the world of objects, the world of movement and the world of events.

Bennicke's work is held in numerous prominent museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu, the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm, and the Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen. She has received the Thorvald Bindesboll Medal from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, as well as a Lifelong Achievement Award from the Danish Arts Foundation.