An Eye in Every Layer

by Kirke Hundevad Meng

          Sif Hedegård’s exhibition An Eye in Every Layer reminds us that the earliest artworks originated in the service of a ritual. This ritual - first the magical, then the religious kind, is what initially gave an artwork its aura. According to Walter Benjamin, a work of art obtains this aura from authenticity, that is, its unique existence at the time and place it happens to be located. This basis is still recognizable as a secularized ritual today even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty – which is where its display value is valued higher than its magical or religious cult value. Hedegård has us keep this in mind as she presents us with what seems to be an autopsy carried out in search of the aura like it was the cause of death. And so here we are, in a white, clean space. Before us hangs a giant glowing chain. A spinal-looking stool stands nearby. We’re also shown a much smaller and shorter chain. On two separate walls hang what looks like a pair of ornamented red blood cells the size of big dinner plates. We do not need a microscope; the enlarged scale takes care of that issue should the aura reside on a cellular level.   

I

          By its sheer size and glow Hedegård’s big chain quickly becomes the center of attention as we enter the space. Early Christian theologians saw prayer as a luminous chain, extending to the Creator, and this chain is luminous too, but its links are hollow like bird bones. I know this because I can see through their ghostly pale, paper skin into their wooden frame. Its glow is not religious or magical, it is LED lights controlled by a Raspberry Pi computer. And while the smaller chain is solid; underneath the lacquer’s discreet luster and odd purplish beige color, its imperfect carvings reveal a glued structure made of wood. Its awkward length compared to its big links makes it less of a tool and more of a symbol. Both chains thus become an ambivalent image of interconnectedness between all the artworks in the gallery, which all share the same primal form – the circle. Following this logic of interconnectedness, the pieces latch on to a dichotomy about the body, specifically about the body as a tool for living versus the body as a vessel for spirit. The bodily associations are clear and yet it is unclear to us exactly what body we’re talking about. The odd scales – odd from the point of view of a human frame – are dictated by the pieces themselves. The disks that make up the plates of the spine stool are the cutouts from the big chain, while the circumference of the red blood cells corresponds to the links of the chain. The body then in this case must be the body of work. Aura thrives once it has attached itself to a work of art because of the distance that we automatically experience it from - behind a glass panel or the invisible borders of a gallery, but this in turn also fosters a sense of passivity on the part of the audience.

II

          According to the definition of aura, authenticity is also linked to the act of creating said artwork – its origin in the material flow of time. The aura is, in other words, transferred from Hedegård’s specific touch. Returning to Hedegård’s efforts, it becomes clear that the autopsy is not only an investigative procedure but also a surgical one in which her mission is to cut out and isolate any trace of aura from the works as if it were a bacteria spreading throughout the body of works’ tissue with great speed. It becomes a herculean, whack-a-mole effort to keep aura from forming while still holding such high veneration for objects as she does. Every single piece is constructed with great intent while certain elements are left deliberately crude as if her focus - and scalpel - suddenly were needed elsewhere. It seems like, if the artworks become too polished or of too noble a material, it is not only the audience that will experience a distance from the work – so will she. This is what Hedegård’s DIY-inspired aesthetic comes to represent. We are all quasi-experts or to a certain extent familiar with the qualities of these types of common materials. But at the same time Hedegård is the one to pull these things out of their material flow and endow them with an aesthetic or display value. In this way she is fully aware that her act of creating art “infests” the pieces with aura, and yet without her, there would be nothing. With this awareness Hedegård’s scalpel becomes double-edged, she cannot remove herself nor her presence from the works no matter how many holes she put in the chains and the blood cells. The works cannot exist without their creator. Therefore, the body of works in the exhibition also appends to Hedegård’s own body.

III

          And then we’ve reached the final layers, which include the piece of paper you're holding now: Yet another little material circumstance, Hedegård has arranged for our eyes to sublimate her body of work through. Remnants of it will stay with you – if not in thought, maybe as a folded-up piece of paper that eventually will be churned to illegible lint in your pocket. From a materialist vision of the world, what we share with the pieces is that we are all involved in an uncontrollable play of material forces that makes every action contingent, and whatever we see, we expect its disappearance sooner rather than later. The blood cells stare back at us from their wall placement, the aura performatively draining out from where their eyes should be.

          Having mentioned autopsy, from the very beginning I have implied a death, or an end if you will. Our saving grace here is that if it is a death, there is nothing to mourn. In the secular, purely material world, destruction can only be a material destruction produced by material forces, and any material destruction remains only partially successful. It always leaves debris, smaller circles, eye-clippings, traces and vestiges behind - never a total nothing. In other words, if we cannot totally destroy the world, the world also cannot totally destroy us. Hedegård operates in this material zone in which total success – but also total failure is impossible. An Eye in Every Layer performs to us Hedegård’s knowledge of the materiality of the world - and of life as a material process.

— Mar. 2025