The Dark Side of Reality
We often think in clichés, says Anne Wenzel. She unravels and dissects symbols to reveal what they truly are. The Damaged Goods series (2013) portrays the raw reality of war. We like to imagine war as heroic, but the reality is ugly and far from heroic. By deliberately disfiguring the faces of the busts, she strips them of their elevated status. The bust as a symbol of male power is undermined. For Wenzel, the insight that a work of art can be created both through construction and through the partial destruction of an image is crucial. Building up and breaking down, beauty and violence, power and revolution: Wenzel seeks a perfect balance between these seemingly opposing forces.
Tangible Transience
Anne Wenzel’s half-decayed floral arrangements from the Attempted Decadence series (2014) take on new meaning within the context of this museum. Shown alongside the exhibition Alexander Roslin: Portraitist of the Aristocracy, these sculptures become a visible expression of transience. A transience that remains unseen but felt in Roslin’s paintings. Roslin and his contemporaries were unaware that the sword of Damocles hung above their powdered heads—but we know it now. With this knowledge, we see Roslin’s work in a new light: the light of the impending revolution that ended the life Roslin and his peers once knew. Wenzel’s installation makes this tension palpable. These powerful images depict flowers in full bloom, already in the process of decay.
