Johannes Leistner

My last trip to Copenhagen did coincident with the COP15 summit which added much more interest to my visit.
I was able to be part of the main demonstration on Saturday, meet interesting people from all over the world which especially arrived for that conference and additionally the city was loaded with activities, actions and sculptures from various artists and organisations.

I especially liked the manifold art events of the SevenMeters initiative and had the chance to take photos of two activities near the Bella Center, the meeting place of the summit.
The photo on the left pictures the “Wandering Refugees”, three 10 meters high sculptures with copper faces and long African women’s costumes in shrill colors. They are put up on the savannah-like areas to remind us of female refugees in Sudan.
The other photo shows “Refugees in Water”, a group of sculptures in human size that are placed in the water ditches under the metro. They shall remind us of the rising water levels and the with it connected streams of refugees, which will be expected.

Unfortunately I missed the “Survival of the Fattest” sculpture which was located near “The little Mermaid”. It was meant as a symbol of the rich world’s self-complacent righteousness and displayed a fat woman (Justitia) with a pair of scales in her hand. She sits on the back of starved African man (i.e. the third world), while pretending to do what is best for him.

The aim of these initiatives is to put focus on the consequences of global warming through various art installations, which will highlight the climate change from different angles. Learn more about the SevenMeters initiative: www.sevenmeters.net

For concert photography the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 lens is probably one of the best choices! The ultra-large aperture provides a bright viewfinder and used on a full format camera such as the Nikon D3, 85mm is a perfect length for working in front of the stage to take close ups of the musicians.

The low-light capability of f/1.4 combined with the awesome high ISO resolution of Nikon’s D3 is a superb match for shooting in bad light situations which are normal at concerts. I bet the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 would also do a good job here, but there’s no substitution for a large aperture but a larger one…

From left to right: Boris Simons, band “Simons Lorence” (Hamburg, June 2008); Mikkel Nordsø, band “Mikkel Nordsø Group” (Copenhagen, July 2008); Krister Jonsson, band “Marilyn Mazur Group” (Copenhagen, July 2008); Julia zur Lippe, band “Simons Lorence” (Hamburg, June 2008)

Based on Wikipedia :: The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an art museum in Copenhagen. The collection is built around the personal collection of the son of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries, Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914). The museum collections include classical Egyptian, Roman and Greek antiquities, Romanticist sculptures, and paintings, as well as Golden Age Danish art. The Etruscan collection is one of the most extensive outside Italy.

Works by impressionists such as Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne are found in the museum, as well as those by Post-impressionists such as van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard. The museum’s collection of Rodin sculptures are considered the most important collection of Rodin’s sculptures outside France. The museum’s collection also includes all the bronze sculptures of Degas, including the series of dancers. Numerous works by Norwegian-Danish sculptor Stephan Sinding are featured prominently in various sections of the museum.

The building housing the collections is often praised in its own right for its elegance, including a sub-tropical winter garden at its centre. Architect Vilhelm Dahlerup created the museum’s first wing, which was inaugurated in 1897. It was soon extended with a new wing in 1906, which was created by architect Hack Kampmann (1856-1920) and houses the collection of ancient works. In 1996 the museum was further enlarged by Danish architect Henning Larsen.

The museum is located across the street from Tivoli Gardens at Dantes Plads 7 in central Copenhagen.