138

News

Painting the town red: Nature lovers up in arms about city park’s new coat

TheCopenhagenPost
May 29th, 2017


This article is more than 7 years old.

Is Aarhus installation art or vandalism?

Artist Katharina Grosse has painted a section of urban landscape at Mindeparken in Aarhus with red and white acrylic paint.

Her work, which is part of an ongoing exhibition at the ARoS Kunstmuseum called ‘The Garden’, is drawing a huge reaction – but most of it is not positive.

“I think it’s terrible,” Aarhus resident Heidi Gadegaard Kristensen told TV2 News.

“It’s one of the cruellest things I’ve ever seen.”

“Poisonous”
Kristensen decided to check out the newly-painted shrubs, trees and grass after hearing about the work from a Facebook user who had complained bitterly that the green space had been “covered in poisonous paint”.

However, ARoS director Erlend Høyerstein thinks that people are overreacting.

“They need to read a little more about the materials we are using and our plans for the area afterwards,” he said.

Høyerstein promises that once the exhibit has closed, the area will be professionally cleaned.

Who’s behind it?
Ango Winther, the chairperson of the technical and environmental committee on Aarhus Municipality’s city council, wants to know who authorised the painting.

“We work to preserve green environments, and I think it is a bit wild to allow something like this in a natural area,” he said.

There is a meeting planned to clarify who granted permission for the artwork.


Share

Most popular

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to receive The Daily Post

















Latest Podcast

A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”