Born 1967
Lives Berlin
Cubes (after Sol LeWitt)
1998/2008
Polystyrene, adhesive tape, composite packaging and milk carton
100×100×100cm (each cube)
Courtesy Galerie Daniel Buchholz
Henrik Olesen’s art works question the historical omission of homosexual figures, inserting them into cultural discourses from which they were notably absent. His multi-part work 1935 1922 (2003) effected a queer détournement of various found sources through collage interventions, including Max Ernst’s pictorial novels La Femme 100 têtes (The 100-headed Woman, 1929) and Une Semaine de bonté (A Week of Kindness, 1934). His more recent work focuses on mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing, who developed the first modern computer but who committed suicide in 1954 after being found ‘guilty’ of homosexuality under British law. Olesen’s sculpture Apple (Ghost) (1) (2008) – an early Apple computer wrapped in plastic foil – alludes to the Apple logo, which emblematized both the digital era Turing ushered in and the cyanide-coated apple with which he chose to end his life. (SL)
