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Henrik Menné: Savsmuldsinstrument (Saw Dust Instrument). 2012, board, plywood, pine tree, saw dust, metal, ventilator, cable, 193 x 83 x 68 cm

Henrik Menné presents systematic pencil drawings and sculptures of wood on his solo exhibition "Stuff" (Ting og Sager). The new works at Galleri Tom Christoffersen are linked in different ways through change of scale, idiom, materials and movement.

One of many paths through the exhibition departs from four pencil drawings. All works on paper are based on a rigid system, where geometry and mathematical principles plays a role. At the same time they are patiently drawn by hand why the machinelike repetition contained in the concept of each drawing is juxtaposed with the timely duration and presence of the body. This is also at stake in the sculpture Tændstikkonstruktion (Match Stick Construction), where the square as ideal is turned physical in a time consuming moulding of match sticks and glue to the point where the materials minimal displacement of the geometrical figure is obvious. This balance between control and an acceptance of what may appear in the particular process of each sculpture is well known in works by Henrik Menné – and also an issue in the machine-sculpture Savsmuldsinstrument (Saw Dust Instrument). It is at work during the exhibition and the visitor of the gallery witness how a cloud of saw dust turns into temporary forms as the substance layers poetically on a branch of fir tree. The saw dust originally stem from a slowly elevated wall of laths, and we thereby return to the drawings as the many visible sections of the laths have affinity to both the dense line works of the drawings and the timely duration invested and visible in each work – and this is only a short cut through a small part of the exhibition.

The deliberate use of wood in all its forms is central to "Stuff". The hierachy from chipboard to teak is presented in a way that leaves room to associations, a trait that have been downplayed in the production of Henrik Menné's so far. Surprisingly most works are unplugged. They are still situated in the field between science and art, and seems driven by a curiosity of the world around us and an urge to understand and present a bit of it through contemporary sculpture.

Henrik Menné (1973/DK) graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2002. Two important works in public space are the site specific Green Lighthouse Instrument (2009) installed at the campus of the faculty of science, University of Copenhagen and the sculpture Cylinder (2008) in Eventyrhaven in Odense. Solo exhibitions count: Live, Ringsted Galleriet (2009), Hjernen i Karret (Brain in a Vat), Galleri Tom Christoffersen, Cph. (2007) and Krognoshuset /Kunstföreningen Aura, Lund (Sweden, 2008). Important group exhibitions are: Vokseværk. Kunsten - Aalborg Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg and Esbjerg Kunstmuseum, Esbjerg (2011), Process is Paradigm. LABoral, Gijon, (Spain, 2010), Physical Conditions. Wood Street Galleries, The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, (USA, 2009), Synthetic Times - Media Art China 2008. National Art Museum of China (Namoc), Beijing, (China, 2008), Rundt På Gulvet, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense (2007). Henrik Menné is represented by Galleri Tom Christoffersen.

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