The Forest















Today,
I had considered writing about the more or less sudden re-appearance of trees and forests in contemporary Danish painting, represented in particular by Katrine Ærtebjerg, Julie Nord, Fie Norsker and many other artists born somewhere between 1968 – 1975. I had the discussion with a Swedish artist lately, and we both agreed, that it seemed to be an absolute tendency among modern danish painters. As to why or how, our thoughts blurred considerable more:
The forest as an introvert symbol for the subconscious, as the ladder part of the scene has become very intro-vert and self-containing, self-perpetuating? The forest as a metaphore of the world/reality as a dark and mysterious place where the definitive control is really beyond us, as the passing seasons is nothing but life and death: the loss of sense, purpose and control?
Or is it that the new born naïve and somewhat infantile art lingo, the lines, the colours, the tendency to thrash the objects in mind, is an excuse for actually not being able to draw or paint and are they just copycats riding a trend that obviously is selling art? Or are they turning to God in nature, the Nature of God, as the golden age romantics did?

I don’t know, but I know what I see, and I know what I read, and I stopped considering writing about it, as I at Politikens website today read that more and more danish families now are buying one Christmas tree per kid per family. There`s a reason. If the forests disappear, we can paint them, before we stop remembering what they looked like, and thus finally I can get lost among pink wheeping willows.

But what also changed my mind was two other things: Yesterdays edition of Information and Lennards posting at DAMIJWH today.
Under the headline yesterday: “You cannot count annula rings on a human being” (the trees again) in Information, the story goes that four Nigerian females (underaged) lately were arrested for prostitution in Copenhagen. Their age in mind, they constituted a major problem to danish minister of social affairs Eva Kjer “in-equality is dynamic, dynamic means mo money” Hansen.

As they accordingly to a UN ruling (which Eva Kjer Hansen has co-written) was to be considered minors, they had RIGHTS, and Eva Kjer Hansen, couldn’t, with a blink on an eye, put them on the next plane to West Africa.
However, the minister have now received the results of a test performed on the Nigerian women in question from Forensic Institute @ The University of Copenhagen, which concludes that the women is more likely to be considered 20 – 21 years of age, instead of 16 – 17. The tests performed by the forensics included:

1) An overall medical examination, focused on the psychical development of the body, and especially on the growth of pubic hair.
2) X-rays of the teeths and bonestructure of the hands and wrists.

Eventhough the forensics states that such a test must be taken with certain reservations, the problem of what to do with the four girls is off of the shoulders of Eva Kjer Hansen. The girls are now placed in the adult asylum center Sandholm, on the mercy of Danish minister of immigration, Rikke “sympathy doesn`t count and I wouldn`t piss on you if your face caught fire” Hvilshøj, and are without doubt awaiting deportation.

So again the real problem of trafficking, poverty, slips out of focus, and we are back to normal.