HISTORY
4 - 24 November 2016
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DAN LUNDBERG
INDECLINE
KRISTINA LIEBUTE
NAME: DIGTEREN HC ANDERSEN LOCATION: COPENHAGEN CITY HALL SQUARE UNVEILED: 1961 SCULPTOR: HENRY LUCKOW-NIELSEN
GALSCHIØT’S feminine Andersen is not the only sculpture in Odense with suggestive overtones. Based on a fairy-tale by Andersen, ‘The Darning Needle’ was apparently supposed to depict a simple thread and needle, but that isn’t what visitors tend to see at first glance. Its creator Frede Troelsen has passed away and it remains unclear whether the sculpture’s uncanny resemblance to a man and woman’s private parts was intentional. Locals – or at least some international students based in the city – call it the ‘penis and vagina statue’. Ironically perhaps, it’s a favoured meet-up point, but maybe not for first dates.
ONE OF Andersen’s best-known fairy-tales, ‘The Emperor‘s New Clothes’, this year inspired members of the American anarchist collective INDECLINE to depict Donald Trump naked, placing statues in public spaces in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Seattle and later Miami. Some of the statues were quickly removed by the authorities, and others destroyed, while one has already been sold for a figure believed to be 20,000 US dollars. As was observed in the Big Apple: “NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.” The weirdly-shaped statues were made out of clay and silicone with veiny skin and no testicles. The statues suggest that Trump is more of a ruler than a revolutionary and make fun of authoritarian leaders’ tendency to honour themselves with large monuments.
COPENHAGEN has a handful of statues dedicated to Andersen. One of the most famous in the city, and also in the world, is at City Hall Square. The bronze statue features Andersen sitting and holding a book while facing HC Andersen’s Boulevard, the capital’s busiest road. In all fairness, he would have probably hated the frenetic location. As a man of many phobias, he packed a rope on his neverending travels just in case he needed to escape a burning building.
JVL
NAME: THE EMPEROR HAS NO BALLS LOCATION: VARIOUS LOCATIONS IN THE US UNVEILED: 2016 SCULPTOR: INDECLINE
TIVOLI
NAME: THE DARNING NEEDLE LOCATION: ODENSE UNVEILED: 1988 SCULPTOR: FREDE TROELSEN
NAME: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN LOCATION: CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK UNVEILED: 1955 SCULPTOR: GEORG JOHN LOBER
MOST ANDERSEN statues tend to take the top hat and book approach. However, Danish artist Bjørn Nørgaard took a less conventional route when he created a four metre-high bronze of just Andersen’s head, with various characters from his fairy-tales dancing on top of it. The sculpture was erected last year at the Tivoli Hotel. Andersen was among the guests who first visited Tivoli after it opened in 1843 and that visit inspired him to write ‘The Nightingale’. Nørgaard cited inspiration from the giant heads of the Olmecs and on Easter Island, among others. Andersen himself believed his head was unusual and was obsessively fixated by it when he was photographed.
TZU-HSUN HSU
NAME: HC ANDERSEN LOCATION: TIVOLI HOTEL UNVEILED: 2015 SCULPTOR: BJØRN NØRGAARD
NAME: NUMEROUS LOCATION: EVERYWHERE UNVEILED: EVERY YEAR SINCE 1875 PROBABLY SCULPTOR: HUNDREDS, MAYBE THOUSANDS IT HAS been over 140 years since HC Andersen died, but the author and his works still echo across the world. Along with themeparks in countries such as Japan (pictured), his likeness can be found everywhere, from Chicago and Solvang (a city founded by Danish immigrants) in the US, to Sydney in Australia, Malaga in Spain and Bratislava in Slovakia, to name just a few.
PERHAPS Andersen’s most famous tale, ‘The Ugly Duckling’, was the inspiration for the world-famous sculpture in Central Park in New York. Commissioned by the Danish-American Women's Association to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth, it depicts Andersen seated upon a granite bench, reading his fairy-tales to a little duckling. During the summer, children flock to the statue for its storytelling program, which over the years has featured some household names, including Denmark’s very own Victor Borge. Copenhagen has itself contributed two 19th century street lamps to the setting, and in turn, New York reciprocated with two of its own, which are still standing at Dantes Plads. The little bronze duckling eternally listening to HC Andersen has actually been stolen a few times, but always successfully retrieved.