HERNING.- Monumental, powerful, and intense. On 6 September 2014 the gateways to Svend Wiig Hansen’s powerful universe are opened wide with the launch of the exhibition GIGIANT (GIANT) at three museums in Jutland. Kunstmuseet Brundlund Slot, HEART - Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, and Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum have joined forces to create the largest-ever presentation of Svend Wiig Hansen’s work. Up until 11 January 2015 visitors can explore the artist’s entire life’s work at the separate, but linked exhibitions at the three museums.

Three points of entry into Svend Wiig Hansen’s world
Svend Wiig Hansen is considered one of the most prominent Danish sculptors, painters, graphic artists, and draughtsmen seen in our current era, and the exhibition GIANT offers three points of entry into the artist’s world. Kunstmuseet Brundlund Slot shows a wide selection of Svend Wiig Hansen’s sculptures, graphic art, and drawings, Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum pinpoints its focus on self-portraits executed in paintings, drawings, and prints, whereas HEART zooms out to present vast, monumental paintings spanning five decades. Together, the museums provide a full portrait of one of Denmark’s most important and influential artists.

Humanity
Svend Wiig Hansen grapples with the darker aspects of life, giving shape to human despair, grief, and powerlessness in his paintings, sculptures, and prints. Vast, malproportioned figures interweave in a turmoil of saturated brushstrokes, their blurry, identity-less faces capturing the human condition as such - not the specific states of particular individuals. The exhibition GIGANT explores pain, hope, and the great existential questions of life.

From Aabenraa to Herning
The journey through Svend Wiig Hansen’s universe begins in the south of Jutland, where Wiig Hansen was born and grew up. At Kunstmuseet Brundlund Slot in Aabenraa the exhibition encompasses indoor and outdoor areas, presenting peculiar and splendid human figures in a wide range of drawings, sketches, paintings, and sculptures. The journey then proceeds to Herning - the city where Svend Wiig became famous for controversial artworks created during his stay with the textile manufacturer Aage Damgaard. Here, Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum presents personal, biographical narratives from the artist’s stay in Herning as well as a wealth of magnificent portraits. The final stop is HEART, where grand and splendid paintings offer palpable and physical evidence of the giant’s prominent position within Danish art history.

The exhibition was created in close co-operation with an external curator, Lars Olesen, and with Svend Wiig Hansens sons Nicholai and Christian Wiig Hansen.