A Grid in Which to Navigate

Format Artspace, 2015

Installation view, 2015

Multisample Anti Aliasing, 2015

Installation view, 2015

The Forearm of Thomas Edison, 2015

The Platonic Solid Series, 2015

The Five Peaks of Mount Meru, 2015

The Five Peaks of Mount Meru, Installation view/light spot grid, 2015

The Sacred Geometry Start-up Kit // Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Spirit, 2015

Installation view, 2015

Octahedron, silkscreen print, 2015

Pyrite crystal, Spirit//The Sacred Geometry Start-up Kit, Detail installation view, 2015

A Grid in Which to Navigate

An exhibition at Format Artspace, Copenhagen.

August 14th to September 26th, 2015

“A Grid in Which to Navigate” is an exhibition about and examination of a geometric pattern called the quincunx.

A quincunx is a pattern consisting of five points with four of them forming a square or rectangle and a fifth at its center. It’s a multifacetted and illusive pattern dating back to antiquity.
Across time and geographical space, this pattern has kept on resurfacing in math, chemistry, science, computer graphics, architecture, forestry, astrology and tattoos. And it plays a role in various religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Hermeticism and New Age.

Thomas Browne, English writer and hermetic of the 1600th century, believed the quincunx to be proof of the existence of God. In New Age culture the quincunx is linked to the five elements: Fire, Earth, Air, Water and Spirit/Ether. They are depicted in the form of Platos and Euclids five regular, convex polyhedrons, the so called Platonic Solids. In Khmer architecture, the towers of a temple, such as Angkor Wat, are sometimes arranged in a quincunx to represent the five peaks of Mount Meru. Mount Meru is a sacred mountain in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. Thomas Edison, whose many inventions included a tattooing machine, had this pattern tattooed on his forearm. It was discovered after his death so nobody knows why he had it.

The quincunx is a simple graphic pattern, that has been used as a vessel or signifier for very different ideas, beliefs and perception systems. It’s a functional, practical mathematical tool, however, so many different cultures and communities believe the quincunx to have special occult potential or spiritual/divine power.
“A Grid in Which to Navigate” is an examination of the quincunx and the extends of its interlocking grid. And it is an exhibition about how easy it is for people to spin their own web of beliefs around it, hoping that there’s more to the world than what meets the eye.