ÆTER / AETHER

13 Jan - 02 Jun 2024

The historical term AETHER is the indefinable "etheric", pure substance which, according to classical philosophy and physics, filled the sky, which was later drawn down to the lower air layers, where it served as a substance through which light rays and electromagnetic waves were thought to pass move. Historically, ether has given rise to many speculations: how do you retain this substance, how do you measure, weigh, describe or visualize it? In modern times, both physicists and artists have tried to put words and form to Ether as a phenomenon.

AETHER is a large Nordic exhibition initiative that shows works by 12 artists from Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Norway. The exhibition's title and concept have been formulated by the two artists Vinni Frederiksen and Ane Fabricius Christiansen, and the contributors are invited to contribute works that deal with the theme - how Aether appears, how we can understand it, and what elusive existential ideas it is also an attempt to articulate. They each work from their own practice and thus contribute to a whole that fills all the exhibition halls at Art Center Silkeborg Bad.

The participants are: Anett Biliczki, Pipaluk Lake, Pekka Paikkari (FI), Grethe Wittrock, Inge Lise Westman, Kasper Friis Kjeldgaard, Erna Skúladóttir (IS), Hanne Friis (NO), Lise Seier Petersen, Barbara Amalie Skovmand Thomsen and the two initiators Vinni Frederiksen and Ane Fabricius Christiansen.

In the exhibition AETHER, 12 Nordic artists relate to the ancient concept, which has lived a chameleon life over the centuries and still appears in everyday speech when something seems to be 'in the ether'. From being associated with Aristotle's fifth element in the celestial sphere, the aether descended to the lower layers of the air when Isaac Newton pondered how light rays might only move, though he had to end up admitting, 'I know not what this aether is' . The enigma only became more complicated when it was discovered that electromagnetic waves such as radio and telegraphy could also move in seemingly inexplicable ways, giving rise to an 'ether physics' that attributed to the ether different and contradictory properties regarding matter and energy.

Early in the 20th century, the ether was scientifically abolished while at the same time branching out into both occult-spiritual and artistic contexts. Here the etheric was understood by some as that from which matter could materialize and dematerialize, by others as a 4th spatial dimension through which the known 3 dimensions moved. Based on these plastic ideas about the ether, the 12 artists now take up the concept for a renewed examination of the relationship between time and space, energy and matter, the absolute and the empirical. Just as we find ourselves in a new time of crisis characterized by both extensive questions about our digital existence, and a spiritual and practical will for a renewed connection with our biological nature, the ether rises once again as a possible explanatory model for everything that we time cannot explain.