Lot 39: NICOLAI HOWALT (b.1970 Danish) & TRINE SØNDERGAARD (b.1972 Danish)

NICOLAI HOWALT (b.1970 Danish) & TRINE SØNDERGAARD (b.1972 Danish)
The Valley Beat I-II from 'How to Hunt', 2005
oversized chromogenic print diptych
each 63 x 79in. (160 x 200cm.)
63 x 161½in. (160 x 410cm.) overall (2)

Howalt & Søndergaard, How to Hunt, Artpeople, 2005, for other images in series (fig.J).

DISTINCTIVELY NORDIC
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Artist's Resale Right ("droit de Suite"). If the Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer also agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
This work is number AP1 from the sold-out edition of 3 + 2 AP and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, signed by both artists.

A modern interpretation of hunting -- a classic motif within art history -- is at the core of How to Hunt, a collaborative project by Copenhagen-based husband and wife team Nicolai Howalt and Trine Søndergaard.

For How to Hunt, Howalt and Søndergaard photographed various hunts around Denmark, yet the series marked a departure from their documentary approach as they turned to multiple exposures and digital manipulation to express their experience. The use of layering and repetition enabled them to represent the movement of the hunters and their prey, as well as to extend 'the decisive moment' in their photographs.

The impressive diptych The Valley Beat I-II poignantly explores the interplay between humans and animals against the backdrop of a misty and expansive Danish landscape. In this constructed tableau, the hunters and their prey are in the distance and occupy separate panels linked compositionally by the low horizon. At once photographic and painterly, The Valley Beat I-II is a tour de force in contemporary Nordic art.

Howalt and Søndergaard were both educated at The Danish School of Art Photography Fatamorgana, Copenhagen. Howalt has received numerous grants and awards, including the Paris Photo Jury's Special Prize in 2006. Søndergaard's works are held in private and institutional collections worldwide, including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan; and The Museum of Art Photography, Denmark. They live and work in Copenhagen.