Flora Danica | John Kørner, Tal R, Per Kirkeby, Marianne Grønnow, Lise Blomberg, Danh Vo, Trine Søndergaard & Nicolai Howalt, Morten Schelde, and Erik A. Frandsen

BORCH Gallery is proud to present for the first time in Berlin the Flora Danica project which was inaugurated in 2012 on occasion of an exhibition at the Natural History Museum of Denmark telling the story of one of the worlds most comprehensive and ambitious encyclopaedias of botany, the ‘Icones Florae Danicae’ also known as Flora Danica.

Starting with a cloudberry plant in 1761, this comprehensive atlas of botany contained, upon its completion, more than 120 years later in 1883, the impressive number of 3,240 engraved copper plates which were published in fifty-one fascicles and three supplements.

For the project, nine influential contemporary Danish artists collaborated with BORCH Editions to create a series of graphic works based on the Flora Danica. They were invited to choose from the original copper plates and incorporate them in new prints with techniques ranging from woodcut and drypoint through aquatint to photogravure. The resulting prints are an intriguing reflection on nature and man’s understanding of it, cultural identity, and the passage of time.