Sanctum: Gjertrud Hals

From February 7 to Octobre 25, 2020, Galerie Maria Wettergren presents the solo exhibition Sanctum by the pioneering textile artist, Gjertrud Hals (b. 1948, Norway). Over the past twenty years, Hals has visited and collected inspiration from “places marked by rites, myths or by significant events”, such as Varanasi, Mount Sinai, Kyoto, or the Forbidden City. The souls of these places (anima locus) form the core of this exhibition, in which Hals shows her most recent works, made from various types of metal and fibers. Chosen for their intrinsic beauty, Hals composes with materials from recycling sites or objects found on the beach or on the roadside, such as the reddish copper wire of electrical cables, the ring-pulls of beer cans, a fragment from a clock, or a piece of plastic jewelry…The artist weaves, knits and hammers these so-called poor materials delicately like a goldsmith, transforming them into refined grids, vibrating sculptures, poetic dream-catchers. Through her delicate yet powerful works, this ‘artist-alchemist’ shares with us her personal wonder at metamorphosis, whether it is a material that she transfigures from waste into art, or a culture she elevates from low into high, all the while maintaining a trace of its original state.