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Benny Dröscher

  
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Benny Dröscher.
Recalculating (5), 2012.
130 x 180cm. Acrylic on canvas.

More images: www.artnews.org/bennydroescher

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INTRODUCING: Benny Dröscher
by Martin Herbert for Modern Painters

I’m often lost in reverie,” says Benny Dröscher when asked to characterize his working practice, adding ambiguously that “the starting point is frequently my sense of wonder.” Yet the Danish sculptor, painter and occasional photographer is no wide-eyed naïf, however much his sunny aesthetic and pictorial vocabulary—birds, butterflies, fountains, trees, and mystical trappings such as stone circles and dreamcatchers—might indicate otherwise.
To begin with, Dröscher’s art disdains the credulity that’d make his art bong-friendly. Consider his 2005 sculpture, With my head bent auspiciously over the centre—it looks like a cartoon of a deterministic universe manned by some pagan controller, but diminishes the idea that this might be its awestruck ‘message’ by revealing itself as a layer cake of dissimulations. Fixed to the wall, a barky segment of tree outstretches two branching arms, each supporting a type of stringed cross used by puppeteers. The strings, festooned with Christmas-decoration stars, culminate at ground level in two fur rugs, tugged lightly upward like shaggy, faceless animals. And so the emblematic substitute (those ersatz stars) abut the theatrically faked (the hirsute creatures given potential life when jerked by strings), and the subtly deceptive (the tree, a sedulous sham). None of it is ‘real’, so to speak, but we’re more convinced by the tree because it seems relatively real. The idea inherent in this tiered realism—that in the face of a whopper, a subtler fib might pass—reflects Dröscher’s fascination with belief systems and audience manipulation: questions of why we choose to accept something or other as valid, and to what end, permeate his art.
What Dröscher wants, in fact, is to create an engagement with reality unencumbered by a priori categories. To lead us towards that place, though, he feels obligated to show us how these come about—doing so by taking things we have categorized as safe and/or unimportant and reactivating them through estrangement. Bonfires, for instance, which have in the past been centrepieces of pagan rituals and also ancient sites of storytelling—and, in the UK, are strongly associated with Bonfire Night, in which the story of a 17th-century plot to blow up Parliament has long been subsumed in carefree celebration around a giant pyre—first appeared in his work in 2001. A painted sculpture of frozen flames, Bonfire is a weirdly inert, oversized bauble that spotlights Dröscher’s formative interest in Pop. (“I loved it for its clarity,” he’s remarked.) But when the motif reappeared earlier this year in “Lurking for Transcendental Moments,” Dröscher’s first London show at Rokeby, in the form of Would you believe it if your child confessed to be an incarnation of your late mother (2007), it had turned unreal, carved flames leaping sideways from a central stack of modelled logs. If the bonfire has become a safe symbol, the artist admits as much—while pointedly restoring its strangeness.
On one level, then, Dröscher seeks to show that we can be seduced, through aesthetic tweaking, into seeing something convincingly odd and almost mystical in symbols that seem to have guttered out. This received effect, in his work, is thoroughly intermingled with the business of looking at art, which is similarly a matter of being convinced—by ambience, by technique. As humans, we’re primed to look for cause and significance, to see purpose in the illogical, Dröscher implies: the same neurons that fired to make us believe in religions can also do so in the name of art.
Connected to this exploration of how art convinces is the fact that, alongside his sculptures, he often exhibits paintings that swirl with the same imagistic repertoire. Both Dröscher’s canvas Speaking Softly about Important Issues (6) (2005) and his sculptural installation from the same year, I Am So Sick and Tired Having to Do Everything Myself—the latter dating from the time when the artist finally hired assistants to help realize his meticulous forgeries—feature arrangements of spindly tree-trunks and birds. The sculpture, though, involving a ritual circle and crystals, is neatly organised; the painting is a bouillabaisse of techniques, from sharp realism to messy gestural marks. If the sculpture privileges verisimilitude to theatrically reactivate its otherwise inert pagan symbolism, the painting argues for the same thing in a different, dreamier manner. An instinctive, confident sense of composition anchors the canvas; one is tempted to see it as painting-as-spell, as if its colliding aspects were combinatory ingredients thrown knowingly into a cauldron. The two formats reinforce each other, as Dröscher intends: “I’ve always enjoyed the strange play between making a physical object out of an image and vice versa,” he says. “Together in the same room, it’s hard to reject the imagery since it is actually there right next to you – both as an image and for real.”
So yes, we can easily be encouraged to put our trust in something irrational. But, again, Dröscher has a larger point to make, which has little to do with mysticism per se. If we accept or reject things irrationally, he suggests—if we consider them as relics, or as kitsch—we’re practicing a form of discrimination. He’s capable of extending this into a kind of equal-rights charter for physical phenomena: “We all stand in front of an artwork with a certain accumulation of information, ideas, even prejudices,” Dröscher continues. “If you’re going to communicate directly with what’s in front of you, these must be thrown away. Your normal way of understanding must be short-circuited, so you can speak in a non-verbal language.”
In order to put us in that place, Dröscher’s works constantly seek that fine point where logic is suspended but incoherence is also held in fragile abeyance. My Grandma relied on an endless source (2007) arranges spindly birch branches into a bower that surrounds an obviously unreal, sculpted waterfall. Again the elements exist on different representational levels. In part it feels like an imitation, in part like a real thing, a readymade; this prevents one from categorizing it easily. Which, for Dröscher, is the point: one is confronted with something which won’t be contained by words and definitions. “I love this place between reality and representation,” he says, “where there is doubt about how the world is turning, and whether we’re really seeing and interpreting it correctly.”
The result is a glimpse into the mystery of the uninscribed visual, its unknowability beyond what we can say about it. Dröscher’s art, then, is a looping process aimed at opening up perception. It begins in his own wonder—he evidently spends quite a bit of time spacing out in birch forests—and, after making visible our own propensity for being manipulated and pushing us towards an encounter with the fathomless, unmediated real, it ends there too. Accordingly, and while one hesitates to layer metaphorical readings onto Dröscher’s art, there’s something apt about his repeated deployment of one circular motif—a component in many of his paintings including the pointedly titled Speaking softly about important issues series (2005–ongoing): a loop, made by two forked birch branches meeting and curling around each other, which vignettes the star-laden infinity of the night sky.

—Martin Herbert
   

Benny Dröscher

1971 born in Aalborg, Denmark

Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark

Education

1992 - 96 The Jutland Academy of Art

Grants

Statens Kunstfond, 2008
Kunstrådet (The Committee for Visual Arts), 2007
Ny Carlsberg Foundation, 2006
Queen Ingrid’s Roman Grant, 2006
Kunstrådet (The Committee for Visual Arts), 2006
Kunstrådet (The Committee for Visual Arts), 2005
Queen Ingrid’s Roman Grant, 2004
The Sculptor Gerhard Henning’s Grant, 2003
Statens Kunstfond (Danish Endowment for Visual Art), Working Grant, 2003
Billedkunstrådet (The Committee for Visual Arts Visual Art), 2003
Statens Kunstfond (Danish Endowment for Visual Art),
2-years Working Grant, 2000-02
Supported by The Academy Councils Grant for Younger Artists Exhibition-activities.

Solo Exhibitions

2009
"Let us suppose, then that we are dreaming". The AGENCY, London, UK

2008

"Blissfully still". Bergen Kunsthall, Norway.

"The look of a sky that is looked at". Blindarte Contemporanea, Naples, Italy

2007

"A strong prescence beneath the trees". Mogadishni, Copenhagen , Denmark

"Lurking for trancendental moments", ROKEBY, London, UK

2006

“Sahst du nach dem Gewitterregen den Wald?!?!“ Gallery Fiebach & Minninger, Cologne, Germany

2005
“Abducted by U.F.O.s - purged with Hyssop"
MOGADISHNI, Copenhagen, Denmark

2003
“Waterfall and Sugar-Coated Memories”
Galleri Specta, Copenhagen, Denmark

2002
“Parfait-amour and other Paramount Glances”
Galerie MollerWitt, Aarhus, Denmark

2001
“A Fairy-told-tale”,
Galleri Specta, Copenhagen, Denmark

2000
“Two Treohh”,
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Exhibitionspace, Cph., Denmark
(with Trine Boesen)

1999
“As If ......”,
Overgaden, The Ministry of Cultural Afairs Exhibition House for Contemp.Art,
Copenhagen, Denmark

1997
“Mind You”
Kunstnernes Hus, Aarhus, Denmark

1996
“Boy Story”,
Gallery Hogsberg, Aarhus, Denmark

“Other Peoples Secret”
Rum 46, Aarhus, Denmark

Group Exhibitions

2011
"Screaming from the Mountain". Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand, Norway.
Malmö Konstmuseum on Hovdala Slott. Hovdala Slott, Hässelholm, Sweden.
”Personal Matters” Charlotte Fogh Contemporary, Århus, Denmark.
“I Love Malmö”, Vesterås Konstmuseum, Sweden.

2010
"Twig", Vitrine Gallery, London, UK
"Undefined borders for unlimited perceptions", Blindarte Contemporanea, Naples, Italy.
"things that matter a lot" Christoffer Egelund Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

2009

"Big Bang" akt1, Galleri Kant, Esbjerg, Denmark

"New Talents" Anders Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany

"The Party" - Groupshow deLuxe, Beaver Projects, Copenhagen Denmark

"Glad to invite you", Mostra D'Oltremare, Naples, Italy

“Roma. The Road to contemporary art” Palazzo Venezia, Rome, Italy

“The force of the Romanticism”, Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden

”Et Vintereventyr”, Gl. Holtegaard, DK

2008
"Frelst fiktion", Museum for religious art, Lemvig, Denmark

"Soul Stripper", Brussels, Belgium

"Ild". Museum Trapholt, Kolding, DK

“Havfrue hår og Neptuns Hovedpine”, The Danish National Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

2007

PULSE-Miami, (Mogadishni), Miami, USA

“Salon # 1”, Laurtiz Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Match Race”, Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg, DK

ZOO,( Rokeby and Mogadishni), London, UK

” Is it a Pazziella?” Capri, Italy

“Havfrue hår og Neptuns Hovedpine”, The Danish National Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

Artnews Projects, Berlin, Germany

2006
“Go Figure”,
Mogadishni Aar, Aarhus, Denmark

“Rome on Kgs.Nytorv”
Sculpture, (50 years anniversary of The Danish Academy in Rome,Italy), Copenhagen, Denmark

“Kvindens rum“
Galerie Møller-Witt, Aarhus, Denmark

”The Diamond Dog”
+Laboratorium, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Naturally”
Mogadishni, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Samlings…….”
Museum Trapholt, Kolding, Denmark

“ Krydsfeldt Natur-ligt”, Museum Trapholt , Kolding, Denmark

2005
”the leisure club”
Blindarte Contemporanea, Napoli, Italy

NADA,(Mogadishin), Miami, USA

Artforum Berlin (Mogadishni), Germany

”Vandspejl”, The Frederiksberg Gardens, Denmark

2004
”Som modlys og andre overvindelige forhindringer”, Bornholm Kunsthal, Denmark

”Tusenfryd? Tusenfryd!”
Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway

”Arkens Samling nu”
Arken - Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

“Den Gyldne”
Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark

2003
“Familiebilleder”
Brænderigaarden, Viborg, Denmark

2002
“Over the Horizon”
Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden

“On a Clear Day”
Sophienholm, Copenhagen, DK enmark

“The Harder They Come”
Sparwasser, Berlin, Germany

“The Half”
Randers Kunstmuseum, Denmark

“The Half”
Galleri Specta, Copenhagen, Denmark

2001
“up till 2002”
Galerie MøllerWitt, Aarhus, Denmark

“New Acquisitions”
The Danish National Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Artissima” (Galleri Specta), Turin, Italy

“Masculinities”,
Nikolaj Contemporary Art Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Danish”
Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden

“Charlotttenborgs Efterårsudstilling”
Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Love”
Otto on Tour, Aarhus, Denmark

“Take off 20:01”
Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark

2000
“Brief Encounter”
Opera Paese, Rome, Italy

“New Acquisitions”
Arken - Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

Projects

The MANIFESTO for Artreview, Juli issue 2007

Collections

Malmo Konstmuseum, Sweden

Arken- Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj, Denmark

The Danish National Gallery, Kobberstiksamlingen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Statens Kunstfond (Danish Endowment for Visual Art), Denmark

Museum Trapholt, Kolding, Denmark.

The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

The StatoilHydro Artcollection, Norway

Kastrupgaardsamlingen. Denmark

Nykredit, Denmark

NoVo Nordica, Denmark

Nordea, Norway

+ private collections in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, USA, Australia, South Africa, UAE, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Denmark

Bibliography

Krag, Anders Kig op.
The Artmagazine "Kunst"# 3, 2010
(Danish)

Hauge, Øystein. Fri som foten.
Bergens Tidende, 29 September, 2008
(Norwegian)

Leigh, Gabriel. A Meditative Condition
A text for Bloom 18, 2008.
(English)

Stanziano, Lorenza. Benny Droscher,
Blindarte Contemporanea, Napoli.
ArtKey no 5, June – July, 2008.
(Italian)

Barucco, Simona. Benny Dröscher,
Blindarte Contemporanea, Napoli.
Arte é Critica no 55,
June -August, 2008, page 102.
(Italian)

Oreto, Elda. La Natura diventa caos nelle tele
di Droescher
La Repubblica, ed. Napoli,
02/04-2008, page 13
(Italian)

Pepe, Anita. In Droscher natura con ironia
Roma, 22/03-2008, page 11
(Italian)

de Ciuceis, Paola. Stanco di essere ateo Dröscher cerca Dio.
Il Mattino, 25/04-2008, page 44
(Italian)

Simeone, Darla. Il cielo di Dröscher latteo e riflettente per svelare la verità.
DNews, 20/03-2008, page 31
(Italian)

de Vagio, Roberta. Benny Droscher – The look of the sky when looked at.
CasaMiaDecor, May 2008, 116/17
(Italian)

Herbert, Martin. Introducing: Benny Dröscher.
Modern Painters, september 2007
(English)

ArtReview Manifesto
Artreview , Issue 13, July & August 2007
(English)

Appleyard, Charlotte. Empty Iconography?
A Short Paper on Visual Language and Belief
Roundtable Review, July-August 2007
(English)

Darling, Samantha. Lurking For Transcendental Moments.
Fringe Report, 2007.
(English)

Rosenvinge, Line. Stjerne-Dröscher over London/ Dröscher’s star floats over London.
Information 11th June 2007
(Text in: Danish and English)

Admiss, Danielle. Benny Dröscher, Lurking for Transcendental Moments. Frieze Art Writers Prize, 2007
(English)

Rosenvinge, Line. Benny Dröscher, Lurking for Transcendental Moments.
Kultureflash 207, 06/06-2007
(English)

Høgsbro Østergaard, Cecilie. Glansbilleder med glimmer / Scrapbook stickers with glitter.
For the catalogue, Benny Dröscher Selected works 2006
(Text in: Danish and English)
ISBN: 87 – 991443-0-1

Jacobi, Marie Christine. Indblik – Kunst i Nykredit
Insight – Art at Nykredit
(Text in: Danish and English)
ISBN: 87-986079-4-4


Olesen, Lene Roed. Benny Dröscher - barok, popkunst og tegneseriesymbolik
Benny Dröscher – Baroque, pop art and comic-book symbolism
Rom på Kongens Nytorv
Det Danske Institut i Rom’s 50års jubilæum
(Text in: Danish and English)




Nørskov, Anni. Mærkelige Værker.
Remarkable Works.
Krydsfeldt, volume 02, 2006.
Museum Trapholt, Kolding, Danmark.
( Text in: Danish and English)

Krogh, Anna. Skulpturens umuligheder / The impossibilities of sculpture / Die unmöglichkeiten der skulptur/ Le impossibilitá della scultura
For the catalogue Benny Dröscher, Mogadishni, 2005
( text in: Danish , English, German and Italian)

Kristensen, Pernille Anker. Hvid magi i den gamle papfabrik
Jyllands Posten København, 23. maj 2005

Mogensen, Eva Skibsted. Benny Dröscher: A Fairy-told-tale, 2001
( text in: Danish, English, German and Italian)

Kristensen, Pernille Anker. Vandfald og juleglimmer.
Jyllands-Posten, 14.november 2003

Damgaard, Julie. Waterfall and Sugar-coated Memories.
Citadel, november 2003

Misfeldt, Mai. Det sødtsukkerdækkede findes.
Berlinske Tidende, 13.november 2003

Kern, Kristine. Glansbilleder.
Politiken, 7.november 2003

Østergaard, Cecilie Høgsbro. Glansbilleder med glimmer.
Information, 17.november 2003


Bonnén. Kaspar. Familiebilleder
Family Pictures
Kunsthallen Brænderigården, Viborg, 2003.
(Text in: Danish and English)
ISBN: 87-90192-31-1

Meistrup, Erik. Parfait-amour and other Paramount Glances
Kunstavisen 9/ oktober-november 2002

Rosenvinge, Line. Fabelagtigt feagtigt.
Årbogen Dansk kunst 2001


Søndergaard, Peter Brix. ”Hvad er dog det, der gør den nye danske kunst så anderledes, så tiltalende, endog?” (Notater i anledning af Take Off 20:01.
Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2001.
ISBN: 87-88575-47-0

Kold, Anders. Benny Dröscher,
Take Off 20:01.
Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2001.
ISBN: 87-88575-47-0

Madsen, Trine Møller. Tråd, garn og hjemmestrik – ifølge Kirstine Roepstorff og Benny Dröscher.
Kunst nr.4, juli-august 2001

Gade, Rune. Som en mand – en tekst om maskulinitet og kunst.
Like a Man – a text about masculinity and art.
Maskuliniteter, Nikolaj Udstillingsbygning, 2001.
( Text in:Danish and English)
ISBN: 87-88860-73-6

Kristensen, Pernille Anker. Billedhugger i eventyrland + Kun en tåbe frygter ikke haven.
Jyllands-Posten (København), 8.maj 2001

Ross, Trine. Fortryllelse og rå realitet.
Politiken, 27.april 2001

Olsen, Sanne Kofod. Concepts of Diversity: Brief Encounter.
Opera Paese, Rom, Italien, 2000.
(text in: English and Italian)
ISBN: 87-89138-47-3

Olsen, Sanne Kofod. (Non)-figurationer og æstetiske forbindelser.
LSD, Galleri Specta, 1999.
ISBN: 87-89138-45-7

Bækgaard, Bjarne. I Dröschers laboratorium.
Århus Stiftstidende, august 1996

Christensen, Karen Louise Juhl. Skulpturelle gerninger.
Jyllandsposten, 26. februar 1997.

Garde, C.F. Æstetik og ren poesi.
Århus Stiftstidende, 15.februar 1997.

Westh, Marie Rømer. Benny Dröscher – Hændelser i rum.
Kunst nr.? 1997
   

Benny Dröscher

Nordby Hovedgade 14
8305 Samsø
Denmark

+45 21 73 23 20
bennydroscher@hotmail.com

BLINDARTE CONTEMPORANEA
via Caio Duilio 4D
80125 Napoli
Italy

+ 39 081/2395261
info@blindarte.it
www.blindarte.it
   





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