Carsten Höller

Carsten Höller (*1961 in Brussels) created his Canary series in 2009. He became particularly known for his large slides (at the Tate Modern, and elsewhere) and carousels. Canary is a series of large gold gravures of various canary bird motifs. Whereas some of the shimmering, very elegant golden images look like classic prototypes of the canary, others have a rather odd appearance: all are mutations; some have extremely ruffled feathers, while others are remarkably thin. The artist, who also studied natural science, used to breed canaries, so he is familiar with the occasionally strange products of breeding efforts.

For our Edition Hatje Cantz, Höller has produced gravures of a portrait of a canary, similar to the ones in his series. The photograph was taken by Leone Giuliano Pidala, who has made the most progress in developing the art of photographing birds in the studio. The copper and black gravures are printed in Copenhagen, in cooperation with Niels Borch Jensen.