Water Serpent
2021
Jakob Kudsk Steensen
b. 1987, Denmark lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Jakob Kudsk Steensen's work revolves around a 3D scanned cactus organ, a dried out branch the artist documented during a week-long desert trip in California. Drained of water, the cactus reveals its internal infrastructure, a rhizome that lends it its idiosyncratic survival qualities.
Blurring inside and outside, botanic and organic, the viewer can explore the cactus from up close, and reveal a serpent swirling round it, its eyes following the viewer. Steensen's work aims to revive mythologies centered on snakes and deserts as positive spirits and omens of life, rather than a symbol of toxicity and death.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen was the inaugural recipient of the Serpentine Galleries' Augmented Architecture Commission, and has recently exhibited internationally at the Venice Biennale; PinchukArtCentre, Ukraine; MATADERO Madrid; Tranen Center for Contemporary Art, Denmark; Mac Lyon; Pylon-Hub; SXSW; BRIC Brooklyn; the 5th Trondheim Biennale for Art and Technology; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; MAXXI Rome; and FRIEZE London, among other institutions and festivals.
Courtesy of the artist
Jakob Kudsk Steensen
b. 1987, Denmark lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Water Serpent
2021
Jakob Kudsk Steensen's work revolves around a 3D scanned cactus organ, a dried out branch the artist documented during a week-long desert trip in California. Drained of water, the cactus reveals its internal infrastructure, a rhizome that lends it its idiosyncratic survival qualities.
Blurring inside and outside, botanic and organic, the viewer can explore the cactus from up close, and reveal a serpent swirling round it, its eyes following the viewer. Steensen's work aims to revive mythologies centered on snakes and deserts as positive spirits and omens of life, rather than a symbol of toxicity and death.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen was the inaugural recipient of the Serpentine Galleries' Augmented Architecture Commission, and has recently exhibited internationally at the Venice Biennale; PinchukArtCentre, Ukraine; MATADERO Madrid; Tranen Center for Contemporary Art, Denmark; Mac Lyon; Pylon-Hub; SXSW; BRIC Brooklyn; the 5th Trondheim Biennale for Art and Technology; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; MAXXI Rome; and FRIEZE London, among other institutions and festivals.
Courtesy of the artist