Ulla Wiggen

The Swedish artist Ulla Wiggen began her career in the 1960s, painting electronic components and circuit boards. She explored this world when hardly anyone could predict how digital technology would radically change our daily lives. In 1968, she took part in the landmark exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity in London. As part of that exhibition, which explored the possibilities of the fusion of art and science, she showed two paintings depicting the internal circuits of electronic devices, TRASK (1967) and Vägledare (1967).

The work Sändare (1968), on display in this exhibition, shows electricity masts against a backdrop of a blue sky. Sändare occupies a transitional position within her oeuvre, marking the shift from Wiggen’s focus on solely the inner structure of computers to the connec- tions between humans, machines and the outside world. After a period of mainly painting portraits and people’s faces, Wiggen developed a fascination with the brain and the iris of the eye, which she devotedly captures in her detailed paintings. The Face of Mind (2016), a more recent work by Ulla Wiggen, shows her fascination with the inner structure of the human body and brain and the relation between interiority and exteriority.

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Cycle, Portal, Path

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This fall, Nest presents Cycle, Portal, Path: an exhibition that examines how the traces left by the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) affect contemporary art 100 years later. Af Klint lived in a time full of developments and scientific turmoil. Scientists studied nature and dealt with phenomena such as atomic fission and X-rays; discoveries that shaped the world and made the invisible visible.

Cycle, Portal, Path shows that Af Klint’s exploration of the relationship between science, nature and spiritual life is as urgent now as it was in her time. The artists in the exhibition relate directly or indirectly to Af Klint and her views and supplement them with contemporary or futuristic ideas. Through meditative drawings and video installations, abstract paintings and AI-generated images, the artists reflect on new technologies, spiritual movements, ecology and the connection between then, now and future generations.

Cycle, Portal, Path was created in conversation with Kunstmuseum Den Haag and KM21, where the exhibitions Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondriaan: Forms of Life and Tai Shani – Our Hieromantic Objects of Love will be on view simultaneously. A diverse context program has been developed for the three exhibitions. Keep an eye on our website for updates.

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