Artistic Practice

These Human-Size Ceramic Hares Evoke Serious Emotions

Swedish artist Margit Brundin's large anthropomorphic animal sculptures are on view for the first time in the United States at Dienst + Dotter Antikviteter, in New York.

by Pilar Viladas,  June 2, 2019

For Swedish artist Margit Brundin’s exhibition “A Place Behind the Oak Tree,” Dienst + Dotter Antikviteter, in New York, has installed 10 ceramic sculptures — of human-size hares — among its elegant Scandinavian furniture, art and objects from the 17th to the mid-20th century. These hares are doing some decidedly human things, in human positions: One is crouched, peering at its reflection in a pond-like mirror; another is seated, looking sympathetically at a bird perched on its hand; and a pair sit, leaning against each other’s backs. These creatures seem, to the human viewer, both familiar and disquieting. And that’s precisely the point, says their creator.

Brundin explains that her figurative sculptures, which are made by building up coils of clay and painstakingly incising the surface to represent fur, “create a narrative of the hare as storyteller. And you can project your own story on them. They invite you to open up your imagination.”

Margit Brundin is showing her expressive hare sculptures in her first U.S. exhibition, at Dienst + Dotter Antikviteter (portrait by Andreas Paulsson). Top: Silent Conversation, 2019, sits next to a Bruno Mathsson sheepskin lounge chair and a Poul Henningsen Seven standing light. Photos courtesy of Dienst + Dotter Antikviteter unless otherwise note