Preliminary Work for Tove Storch’s The Ship
Preliminary Work for Tove Storch’s The Ship
A work of art begins long before we encounter it in public space. In sketches, models and experiments, ideas take shape, materials are tested, and the work gradually finds its expression. This is why MAPS collects and preserves preliminary works of particular national significance or local relevance, both to offer insight into how art in public space comes into being and to ensure that important artistic processes are preserved for the future.
MAPS presents visual artist Tove Storch’s preliminary work for The Ship. The exhibition brings together models, drawings and sketches that offer insight into the process behind the 17-metre-long red concrete sculpture, created specifically for the central reservation along Enghavevej in Bavnehøj, southwest Copenhagen.
With its open and abstract form, the work evokes associations with a ship, a drop, an opening, or a bodily figure. This very ambiguity is central to Storch’s artistic practice, in which materials, forms, and meanings are constantly shifting. The work grew out of Tove Storch’s long-standing explorations of casting processes, in which the inherent properties of the material help determine the final form. For The Ship, she experimented with pouring plaster and concrete into stretched fabric, allowing the material to sink and take shape under the force of gravity.
The result is a soft, organic form that contrasts with the hardness of concrete. A tension between weight and movement, solidity and yielding.
The sculpture is closely connected to the history of Enghavevej. The road follows the former coast-line, while Bavnehøj takes its name from the beacons (signal fires) that were lit here during the Middle Ages to warn passing ships of danger. The Ship thus points both back to the area’s maritime past and to-wards the urban flow of the present, where cars and S-trains
pass by at high speed. Today, the many people travelling through the area may experience the sculpture as a fleeting glimpse on their way, while pedestrians have the opportunity to encounter the work at a slower pace, from multiple angles and at closer range.
The development of The Ship took place in dialogue with the local community through a series of workshops, where residents could explore Storch’s working methods and create their own smaller sculptures. In this way, the process became an integral part of the work. The Ship is an example of how a work of art in public space can function simultaneously as a monument, a historical marker, and a site for identification and shared ownership.
Tove Storch (b. 1981) graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2007, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2004, and Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin in 2006. She is a recipient of, among others, the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Grant and the Danish Arts Foundation’s three-year working grant. Her work is held in a number
of public collections, including Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Malmö Art Museum, Malmö; and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Tove Storch lives and works in Copenhagen and is represented by Galleri Nils Stærk.
