Maryam Jafri Untitled (Obstruction)


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For the group exhibition Full Of Days, marking the 140th anniversary of Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, I was one of 14 artists commissioned to produce a new work reflecting on the history of the Kunsthal. The new commissions were presented alongside historical works and images. When the Kunsthal Charlottenborg first opened in 1883, multiple prominent Corinthian columns formed a colonnade down its south wing. As part of a large renovation in 1978, the columns were removed in order to make the space approximate a white cube. This spatial reconfiguration – a turn away from the previous era's neo-classical, museumesque style – reflected a response to the expansion of art practice beyond painting and sculpture and the emergence of a field called 'contemporary art.' Using archival images of the original columns, I made a classical Greek column in Corinthian style and installed it upside down. Based on those images, I recreated a plaster version on a 1:1 scale, adorned with the original flourishes, decorations and fluting, which was then inverted and placed under the same flat arch where four columns used to stand. However, contrary to the originals, my replica is centered on the beam and painted a grey that represents the average color of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg archive. The grey color was obtained by running archival photographs of the Kunsthal through an image analyzer that calculates the average color of the images as an RGB value. Past and present are subtly yet monumentally merged as the sculpture emerges as both an obstruction and a specter. Research images (from 1954, 1911):
Untitled (Obstruction) (2023) Plaster, wood, EPS foam, 85 x 85 x 510 cm/33.5 x 33.5 x 201 inches back to works

For the group exhibition Full Of Days, marking the 140th anniversary of Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, I was one of 14 artists commissioned to produce a new work reflecting on the history of the Kunsthal. The new commissions were presented alongside historical works and images.

When the Kunsthal Charlottenborg first opened in 1883, multiple prominent Corinthian columns formed a colonnade down its south wing. As part of a large renovation in 1978, the columns were removed in order to make the space approximate a white cube. This spatial reconfiguration – a turn away from the previous era's neo-classical, museumesque style – reflected a response to the expansion of art practice beyond painting and sculpture and the emergence of a field called 'contemporary art.'

Using archival images of the original columns, I made a classical Greek column in Corinthian style and installed it upside down. Based on those images, I recreated a plaster version on a 1:1 scale, adorned with the original flourishes, decorations and fluting, which was then inverted and placed under the same flat arch where four columns used to stand. However, contrary to the originals, my replica is centered on the beam and painted a grey that represents the average color of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg archive. The grey color was obtained by running archival photographs of the Kunsthal through an image analyzer that calculates the average color of the images as an RGB value. Past and
present are subtly yet monumentally merged as the sculpture emerges as both an obstruction and a specter.

Research images (from 1954, 1911):