Sculptures By Henrik Menné Aren't Finished Until They Get Destroyed

Everyone has heard the Mr. Miyagi-like line: it's all about the process. Well, for sculptor and visual artist, Henrik Menné, this wisdom encapsulates his entire body of work.

While the 40-year-old Danish sculptor hasn't had an exhibition since last spring, his work is so odd that we couldn't help but point it out.  Menné takes the very broad ideas of process and change and incorporates them into his installations. He pairs single materials--wax, stone, plastic--with machines that undergo repetive motions so that the objects get warped and molded over time. For example, he had one machine slowly poor acid onto a piece of stone, so that it eventually whithered into a fragmented pebble. Sort of like watching erosion happen in real-time.

According to his oeuvre, Menné's installations are never considered autonomous art works and they get destroyed or recycled when no longer in a gallery. The importance rests in watching something evolve and develop until it reaches its inevitable demise. His work is not so far off from those drinking bird toys, except that it's not mind-numbing.

His most recent exhibition was called Ting og Sager (Stuff) which debuted at Galleri Tom Christoffersen in Copenhagen. This project included work like Savsmuldsinstrument (Saw Dust Instrument) where gallery visitors saw a cloud of saw dust emerge from an elevated wall of laths and float on to a fir tree branch in layers. Set next to hand drawn illustrations, the lines of saw dust began to resemble the pencil sketches.

Menné also makes replicas of everyday objects that subsequently lose their function when placed in a sterile gallery space, not dissimilar to Czech artist Krištof Kintera who makes domestic objects such as toasters that are broken or have no function to begin with.

Call it low tech machinery meets nature-based art. Or just call it a manmade lifecycle. Either way, the Danish artist prompts us to think about pulse-less materials like plastic, and how they gain life and die when combined with machinery.

You can check out more of his designs below.

For more of Menné's work visit Galleri Tom Christofferson