Art Düsseldorf: Booth I07

Cosmic Relations is a circular installation, comprising of humanoid forms looming above curved metal forms. These figures oscillate between states of translucency and opacity—some revealing silk interiors, while others contain hide, evoking a tension between material fragility and corporeal weight. Meteoric pebbles extend from the curved metal forms, constrasting with the perfection of the circular shape. The figures point inward to the center of the circular form, reflecting the harmony between the human body and the cosmos.

In his discussion of Cosmic Relations, or Astological Humanism, Richard Vine, managing editor of Art in America, described the work as embodying the "music of the spheres," : "Perhaps the artist was seeking, consciously or unconsciously, an ideal metaphor to express the dynamic tension between impersonal laws—whether of society or physics—and the unruly, idiosyncratic, psychologically fraught human nature. Her anthropomorphic forms—flat as shadows, translucent as ghosts—are arranged concentrically above curved metal floor elements that echo planetary trajectories, the rings of Saturn, and the nested heavenly orbits once thought to produce the imperceptible but all-pervasive Music of the Spheres."

Mille Kalsmose presents a new iteration of her globally acclaimed Collected Memory series, recontextualized for Dusseldorf's cultural and ecological landscape.

Drawing on her meticulous practice of transforming paper into repositories of experience, Kalsmose dyes her works with teas, creating a poetic resonance between material and place. Her work invites reflection on the subtle alchemy of memory—its fragility, its resilience, and its profound ability to connect.

Collected Memory debuted at the UN Headquarters in New York (2020), and has since travelled to museums and cultural destinations worldwide. At each location, the installation gathers new contributions, continually expanding its archive of human experiences.

Golden Blindness is a series incorporating braille and gold leaf on paper, a tactile meditation on perception and the unseen. Kalsmose reflects on the series:

‘I cannot see myself’ was one of the statements that surfaced while Mille Kalsmose was under hypnosis. Both in a physiological sense as Kalsmose entered an altered state of mind, but also from a philosophical or even spiritual point of view. If you cannot see yourself, the task of finding out who you are becomes a both demanding and meticulous task. You dig your way through years of material, unravelling your identity in the same way that an archeologist excavates the past or a scholar interprets a poem. This type of blindness does not only bring your own being into question, but also the world and how it appears.