Growing Pains

Museum inspector, Birgit Hessellund, MA writes about Growing Pains, exhibited in The Concert Hall Aarhus Garden:

In August 1989, Aarhus' collection of outdoor sculptures is being increased with the bronze sculpture GROWING PAINS, created by Gudrun Steen-Andersen. With its fine location by the basin in front of The Concert Hall, he will greet many visitors, both locals and tourists. And nobody will need to discuss what the sculpture is supposed to represent. Because everybody can see!

But who considers how daring it is to work so naturalistically in the year 1989? It's not fashionable at all! All things considered, it requires the same courage and tenacity as the modernist, when he had to disregard the demand for realistic representation of the outward reality 100 years ago. "Nature is nothing, the image of it is everything" was slogan of the modernists. No doubt. But without nature, no image. And without people, no art.

From the dawn of time, humans have been preoccupied by their own species. If you throw a glance back over cultural history, you will find evidence of this perpetual fascination and exploration of the human body and soul. And even the divine was only really interesting once it assumed a human shape and became flesh and blood.

Gudrun Steen-Andersen's then 12-year-old son was probably the model. But the sculpture is not a portrait of him, it reaches further and symbolises the very term GROWING PAINS, which holds restlessness and change from one level to another. Nothing can express like puberty this condition of both self-consciousness and infinite vulnerability, when the cocoon starts to crack and the metamorphosis from child to adult is about to take place. That over time many artists have been drawn to this theme can not surprise. It is often seen symbolised in the spring of youth versus the autumn of old age. One of the most famous pictures must be Edward Munch's "Puberty" which shows a young, skinny girl sitting on a bed with her arms crossed protectively over the nudity of the body.

Gudrun Steen-Andersen's boy, on the other hand, makes himself wide. The feet are solidly planted widely apart, his hands at his sides. Come on, he says to the world, this boy at the awkward age, who is both a bit cheeky and nonchalant.
That's how it looks at the first glance. But the expression is ambiguous, because the self-confidence is a necessary cover for the vulnerability and raw sensitivity of the age. The artist has captured this in finely perceived little details. In the slanted glance, which is slightly inward looking and pensive - because the big questions are also part of that age. In the feet, that tilt slightly over the front of the foot. He is sizing up the situation and is ready to move forward.