Morten Søndergaard works within various artistic fields, and debuted as a writer in 1992 with the collection of poems Sahara i mine hænder. An important aspect of Søndergaard’s authorship is his continual return to reality, approached through science, language and the bodily experience. Since the form of writing is based on a relation between the I and the surrounding world, one could classify his poetry as phenomenological.
Important to Søndergaard’s interdisciplinary aesthetical project is his work with sound and music. In the same spirit he has curated a range of exhibitions and installations, and furthermore he has written drama-plays. By this way the sensuous in his poetry and the physical in his other artistic practices meet, attempting to bring poetry and the world a little closer to each other. Carving sentences of daily life into materials similar to tombstones, he makes humoristic twist to simultaneously project the irony of the trivial and death, bringing the poetical closer to our reality.
Søndergaard equals the structure of language and pharmaceutical products in the work Wordpharmacy, consisting a box for each of the 10 parts of speech. The design of the boxes is inspired by medical products, and each contains a package leaflet explaining each parts of speech’ characteristic in a poetical play with the genre of instruction manuals for medicine.
Morten Søndergaard (b. 1964 Copenhagen) studied at the School of Authors, and has a master in literature from University of Copenhagen. Selected solo exhibitions: Bakkehusalfabetet, at Bakkehusmuseet, Frederiksberg (2012), LOVE – Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen (2010), Ordkomfur, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde (2010), Verdensnødbremse, Esbjerg Artmuseum (2007), A Step in the Right Direction, in co-operation with Elisabeth Topsø. Gammel Holtegaard (2006), Stenpiano, marmorsten og lydværk, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2005) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde (2004)
Ukend dig selv, BRANDTS 13, 2017
Morten Søndergaard, "A Pharmacy of Words", Louisiana Channel 2014
Anmeldelse fra kunsten.nu: LOVE - Kunsthallen Nikolaj
available works | website | CV
I'LL TEXT YOU BACK LATER, 2014, pakistan onyx, 63 x 65 cm, ed. 5+1
ALTING ER SOM DET SKAL VÆRE, 2014, Onyx, 24 x 43 cm
UKEND DIG SELV / INTET ER NOK, 2014, mexican onyx, 64 x 110 cm., ed. 5+1
JEG SKRIVER TIL DIG SENERE, 2014, mexican onyx, 62 x 71x cm, ed. 5+1
INTET ER NOK, 2014, Black italian marble, 45 x 66 cm
Ordapotek, 2013, carton, glass, chromed metal, 57 x 27 x 12 cm, ed. 20
Ordapotek (1), 2013, carton, glass, chromed metal, 30 x 30 x 12 cm, ed. 100