SVEND-ALLAN SØRENSEN

Black Crows in the Meadow

March 21 - May 10, 2025

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SPECTA opens Black Crows in the Meadow a solo exhibition by Svend-Allan Sørensen. Based on woodcut as his artistic medium, Svend-Allan Sørensen persistently explores new ways of working with the graphic medium as a traditional craft. Artificial intelligence, text fragments from rock and folk songs combined with insisting on always referring to nature make the works appear as a fusion of past and present and of culture and nature.

In three large woodcuts Sørensen uses text fragments which, with the presence of the crow, put us out into the landscape and yet most of all sets the tone of an atmosphere. The texts form images in our minds and are metaphorical. As a contrast, the series of smaller woodcuts A Crow and a Tree in a Landscape presents the visual expression of a truly dry pictorial description as formed by Artificial Intelligence. The use of both artificial intelligence and texts written by someone else gives Svend-Allan Sørensen's works a kind of vibration between the artist himself and that which lies outside him. The combination of the different approaches - an interplay between expressing oneself in one's own practice and making use of external contributions - makes the works appear as a partial dismantling of the artist's self.

Svend-Allan Sørensen himself says about the works in the exhibition:

"The coherence of the woodcuts is to use a method that is a bit beyond me. Such as texts written by others and images produced by artificial intelligence. The woodcuts will be cut on waste wood that I have been given. In this way, I try to dismantle myself and apply something that I would not have been able to come up with myself to these woodcuts.

Jean Baudrillard wrote about the copy without an original. I find that interesting in relation to artificial intelligence. Because what is the original here? Is it the text that I feed to the artificial intelligence? Is it the image that comes as a digital output? Is it the motif cut into the wooden plate with a laser? Or is it the final hand-printed woodcut?

Are they all copies of my thoughts?

Svend-Allan Sørensen (DK, 1975) is represented in several public collections, including Fuglsang Museum, Kobberstiksamlingen - SMK, Kastrupgårdsamlingen, the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Danish Arts Agency, Museum Jorn, Vendsyssel Museum of Art, Vejle Museum of Art, ARoS, and H.M. Queen Sonja Art Collection, NO. Svend-Allan Sørensen graduated from the Funen Academy of Fine Arts.

The exhibition is generously supported by the L F Foghts Foundation.