
Bernard Kirschenbaum, Cable Arc, 1987. Photo Anders Norrsell.
Bernard Kirschenbaum
Bernard Kirschenbaum
(1924–2016, was born in New York)
Cable Arc, 1987
Lead, welded steel, wire
Dimensions variable
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bernard Kirschenbaum was influential in the Swedish art scene, through exhibitions at Swedish art institutions and as a professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Trained as an architect, he was interested in geometries and technology in contrast to a softer idiom. Kirschenbaum created Cable Arc for the first art exhibition at Wanås in 1987. He was one of few artists at Wanås that year who formed his work to the specific conditions of the site, an approach that later became characteristic for many of the artworks at Wanås. The artwork is the only one from the exhibition that is a permanent part of the collection. Cable Arc reflects the artist’s enduring interest in the arc as a form. The cable constricts in cold weather and expands when it is warm—it creates movement not only in that the cable hangs freely in the air, but also because of the increasing and decreasing distance to the surface.


