Swedish artist Henrik Håkansson explores the boundaries between culture and nature, while addressing the loss of a species, the loss of art, and issues of collecting and theft in the natural world.
Isabella Stewart Gardner engaged in a utopian projection of pleasure and desire onto Nature — an indulgence that was very much of her era. Henrik Håkansson, by contrast, uses a variety of media to dramatize salient and serious environmental issues facing today’s world. He draws a parallel between the extinction of a species and the loss of art, examining how collecting and poaching practices in the natural world predicate the tragic extinction of the Brazilian Spix’s Macaw. The artist has created installations in countries around the world, including France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands. Håkansson’s residency at the Gardner Museum began in 2003.
From the time of Henrik Håkansson’s first residency, the Gardner's Artist-in-Residence program has been made possible in part, by the Barbara Lee Program Fund, The Ford Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, the Thomas Anthony Pappas Charitable Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Nimoy Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
