Swedish artist Henrik Håkansson explores the boundaries between culture and nature, while addressing the loss of a species, the loss of art, and issues of collecting and theft in the natural world.

Isabella Stewart Gardner projected utopian ideas of pleasure and desire onto Nature — an indulgence that was very much of her era. Henrik Håkansson, by contrast, uses a variety of media to dramatize salient and serious environmental issues facing today’s world. Håkansson has always harbored a fascination for the flora and fauna of tropical forests. In this exhibition, the artist used a variety of media to meticulously analyze and dramatize the plight of the Spix’s Macaw, a Brazilian parrot now extinct in the wild. Downloads from the web- images and sounds selected and engineered by the artist – as well as a photograph became the expression of his passion, as they constituted a painstaking account of the life and death of the fragile stunning blue bird, examples of which still survive in captivity and are traded between collectors, much like works of art. As Håkansson examined today’s collecting practices in the natural world, he drew our attention to the danger of altering wild habitats and behavior, and underscored the paradoxical and tragic connection between the production of knowledge and the destruction of the object of study Henrik Håkansson has created installations in countries around the world, including France, Italy, Germany, Japan, England, and the Netherlands.

In 2007, this installation was shown at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, England as a part of Håkansson's exhibition Three Days of the Condor.

Håkansson came to the Gardner Museum as an Artist-in-Residence in 2003. He lives between Varberg Sweeden and Berlin Germany.

Objects in exhibition
1. Cyanopsitta spixii (Spix's Macaw)
Collection of Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, MA.

2. Timeline of Cyanopsitta spixii 1818 - 2006
Six pages in acrylic frames
8 1/2" x 11"

3. Map of Brazil with pin showing the spot where the last
Cyanopsitta spixii was seen in the wild in 2000.
28" x 39 3/4"

4. #646 (Cyanopsitta spixii), 2003
La Vera, Loro Parque Foundation, Tenerife
Photograph by Henrik Håkansson
27" x 40"

5. Articles printed from the web and copied from newspapers pinned to four cork bulletin boards (Aluminum Frame)
60" x 36" each

6. Loan Agreements for exhibition of specimen
Department of Ornithology, Museum of Comparative Zoology and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Two pages in acrylic frames
8 1/2" x 11"

7. Tascam TSR-8, 2 speakers, Tascam RTS-14 rack
21 3/4" x 28" 36"

Learn more about the artist

June 30, 2006

Artist Exhibition Talk: Henrik Håkansson and Pieranna Cavalchini in conversation

July 1, 2006

Noontime Exhibition Talk: Art in a Changing Arctic

2000 Artist-in-Residence Dan Harvey returns to the Gardner to talk about his current work with collaborator Heather Ackroyd and their time in he High Arctic looking at the effects of climate change on this fragile and extraordinary place.

July 2, 2006

Noontime Talk: Spix’s Macaw: Origin, History, and Ecology of Extinction

Scott Edwards, Professor of Organism and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University