Samarbejdsprojekter
Samarbejder med andre kunstnere har stor betydning. Det være sig korte eller de længevarende samarbejder. I kunstpolitisk regi i Storstrøms Amt i 1990erne har især mødet og meningsudvekslinger med billedkunstneren Peter Louis-Jensen været frugtbart. Det var i forbindelse med etablering af lokale kunstråd under BKF (Billedkunstnernes Forbund).
Ligesom Skjernings møde med cellisten og komponisten Jørgen Friis Holm, der arbejdede med moderne musik og Fluxus relateret kompositionsformer. Friis Holm var optaget af helbredelse med moderne digtning og musik og sådanne overvejelser og verdener føltes på mange måder som parallelle til Skjernings billedkunstneriske mål.
En anden type af projekter i samarbejde med andre er renovering og etablering af et udstillings- og kultursted i billedhuggeren Astrid Noacks tidligere bopæl og værksted på Nørrebro i København. Det ligger i Skjernings bylejligheds lokalområde. Det er optagetheden af det lokale og af at skabe egne rum udenfor de etablerede institutioner, der er primus motor for initiativet, der altså i mindre grad er en hyldest til Astrid Noack end at reaktualisere stedet som kunstnerisk refleksivt og ekspanderende rum. Konteksten fra tidligere bliver så at sige genaktiveret.
En sådan syntese mellem det historiske og det aktuelle pointeres med det internet baserede formidlingsprojekt
– endnu ikke fuldt realiseret – som Skjerning kalder Visit Public Art, der via Tinker Bell i en variabel radius af f.eks. 2 km kan formidle info om det historiske, bygninger, skulpturer etc.
kuraterede udstillinger
For at skabe egne rum og egne kontekster har kunstneren indgået i adskillige samarbejder om tema- og gruppeudstillinger.
Den mest aktuelle fra 2009 refererer med titlen Den rådne Banan til bestemte lokaliteter i Danmark og til specifikke sociale og økonomiske vilkår i de pågældende områder. I samarbejde med Søren Taaning og BGK Holstebro tages titlen alvorlig og bogstavelig for Skjernings vedkommende, der i forlængelse af sine biotopiske eksperimenter til udstillingen reflekterede over aktuelle problemstillinger. Værkerne var både to- og tredimensionelle over temaet forrådnelse, landbrug og kapital.
Tidligere gjaldt det samarbejde med Henning Christiansen, Lena Gerlach, Ann Lumbye Sørensen og Miklos Andersen over flere år med udstillinger på Masnedøfortet ved Vordingborg, Knabstrup Kulturfabrik i Knabstrup m.fl., hvor både danske og udenlandske kunstnere blev inviteret til at forholde sig til stedet og til et specifikt tema.
Tekst: Ann Lumbye Sørensen
Collaborative projects
The collaborations with other artists take on a great deal of importance, whether we are speaking of short-term or long-term collaborations.
Within the framework of the Storstrøms Amt’s [county in southern Sjaelland] art administration’s activities, it was Skjerning’s meeting and ensuing exchange of ideas with the visual artist, Peter Louis-Jensen, that proved to be especially fruitful.
This contact transpired, as a matter of fact, in connection with the establishment of a local arts council, formed under the auspices of the BKF (Billedkunstnernes Forbund/The Danish Association of Visual Artists).
Similarly, there was Skjerning’s meeting with the cellist and composer, Jørgen Friis Holm, who was working with modern music and Fluxus-related compositional forms.
Friis Holm was interested in the healing potentials of modern poetry and music and these kinds of deliberations and spheres of interest can, in many ways, be sensed as parallels to Skjerning’s artistic objectives.
Another type of project involving a collaboration with others has been the renovation and construction of an exhibition- and culture-venue inside the sculptor Astrid Noack's former residence and studio in the Nørrebro section of Copenhagen. It is located in the neighborhood of Skjerning’s Copenhagen apartment.
It has been the preoccupation with the local milieu and the urge to create distinctive spaces situated outside the established institutions that are the prime movers for the initiative, which is, then, not as much a homage to Astrid Noack as it is a programmatic attempt to re-update the place as an artistically reflexive and expanding space.
The context from former times thus becomes reactivated, as it were.
Such a synthesis between the historical and the topical is emphasized by the Internet-based communication project – not fully realized as of yet – that Skjerning calls “Visit Public Art”, which – via Tinker Bell, in a variable radius of, for example, 2 kilometers – can communicate information about the historical aspects, the buildings and the sculptures, etc.
Curating projects
In order to create distinctive spaces and distinctive contexts, the artist has entered into a good many kinds of collaborations on setting up theme- and group-exhibitions.
The most recent of these, which transpired in 2009, refers with its title, “The Rotten Banana” to certain localities in Denmark and to specific social and economic conditions in those areas that are being called into question.
In collaboration with Søren Taaning and BGK Holstebro, the title is being taken quite seriously and quite literally on Skjerning’s part: in extension of his biotopic experiments for the exhibition, he reflected on current problems.
The works were both two-and three-dimensional and centered on the themes of decay, agriculture and capital. Earlier on, there was also a collaboration with Henning Christiansen, Lena Gerlach, Ann Lumbye Sørensen and Miklos Andersen that unfolded over the course of several years and was coined in a number of exhibitions at Masnedø Fort near Vordingborg and at Knabstrup Culture Factory in Knabstrup, among other venues, where both Danish and foreign artists were invited to address themselves to the site and to a specifically chosen theme.
Tekst: Ann Lumbye Sørensen
Translation: Dan A. Marmorstein