Past
Pia Rönicke: The Cloud Document
16 Jun – 5 Aug 2017
In her latest, major solo show, Pia Rönicke has created a sculptural, filmic exhibition landscape for the ground-floor galleries at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art. The Cloud Document is the result of an artistic journey through botanical collections, investigating the colonial history of collecting and reflecting on archive material as the source of new narratives.
The Cloud Document is based on an expedition to Mexico between 1841-1843, during which the Danish botanist Frederik Liebmann collected over 50,000 plant specimens. In 2016 Rönicke went to Mexico, and followed in Liebmann’s footsteps with two Mexican botanists, collecting and documenting some of the same plants, as well as new species they encountered on their way. The part of the collection that has now been added to the Copenhagen Herbarium is presented in eight display cases in the exhibition.
Pia Rönicke (b. 1974) is educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and California Institute of the Arts. She has previously exhibited at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art and Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde. Her international exhibitions include shows at leading art institutions like Heine Onstad Kunstcenter in Oslo, Apexart in New York, Tate Modern in London, and GIBCA in Gothenburg.