More than a hundred helium-filled baby penguins will take over the Kunsthal! Cute, packed together, and aimless, they drift with the slightest movement of air. The exhibition When the wind blows brings together two works by Danish artist Benedikte Bjerre (1987): the penguin installation The Birds (2017) and Getting Warmer (2026), developed specially for the Kunsthal. Humour is her starting point; the undertone is more serious.
Step into HAL 5 and find yourself in the middle of a sea of identical helium balloons in the shape of baby penguins. The installation The Birds consists of mass-produced objects, party shop ware; things you buy, use and forget. The choice of the penguin is no coincidence: for Bjerre, this inhabitant of the polar regions is one of the most recognisable symbols of climate change, driven by a system of endless production and consumption.
Getting warmer
For the Kunsthal, Bjerre created Getting Warmer, a text work that runs around the entire space, alternating the words HOT and COLD. They refer to the children's game in which someone searches for a hidden object guided by the words 'warmer' or 'colder', but also to the logic of trends, politics and climate: what is hot today is cold tomorrow. Meanwhile, the climate itself is becoming increasingly unpredictable; no longer a rhythmic alternation of cold and warm, but erratic and volatile.
About the artist
Benedikte Bjerre (1987, Copenhagen) works conceptually from sociological and social phenomena, with a practice focused on sculpture and installation. Her work moves at the intersection of popular culture, mass consumption and the Anthropocene; the era in which human activity is profoundly transforming the earth. Bjerre has previously shown work at Frieze London, palace enterprise Copenhagen, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and MMK Frankfurt, among others. From 2019 to 2023 she was a professor at the Jutland Art Academy in Aarhus, Denmark.
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