ArtPrizein Grand Rapids is usually swarming with people and this year it will be swarming with bees. Kalamazoo artist and beekeeper LadislavHanka has found an interesting way to let his bees collaborate on his artwork.
The Great Wall of Bees: The Intelligence of the Bee Hive by Ladislav Hanka will be on display at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids through October 12.
Hanka makes etchings on copper - usually of plants and wildlife - and then transfers those to prints. He then pastes the prints onto bee frames, covers them in a thin layer of beeswax, and lets the bees get to work. The results are honeycombs in shapes and forms that Hanka says you usually only see in the wild.
“You’ll see these folds and twists and draperies," Hanka says. "They seem to know, at some base, that what I’ve put in there isn’t natural or normal, and yet they don’t seem to reject it either.”
The bees are Hanka’s greatest art critics, he jokes, sometimes chewing up or covering up his artwork. But miraculously they tend to avoid the images all together, creating borders of honeycomb around the art.
“I keep hoping that there’s really sort of a spiritual aspect to all of this, that there is an intelligence to the hive at work," he says.
"Cause I do see curtains of wax coming down that in some ways seem to mimic the image that’s there. There seems to be a response of some kind.”
At Artprize, Hanka will line up 30 of these frames side by side to create a 16 foot wall. That wall will then be encased in glass and filled with bees.
Hanka says the main point of the entry is to showcase a project that he’s been working on for several years. But it’s also to spread a message. Hanka says, like many beekeepers across the country, he lost 90 percent of his hives last year.
“There’s something about presenting something that’s beautiful, that’s artwork, that’s attractive. And with it comes the sense that these creatures must survive, we can’t be just killing them. And of course contemporary agriculture is now the major culprit alongside all kinds of industrial pollution, cell towers, you name it. There are all these things that sum to the bees not being able to make it. They’re becoming another canary in a coal mine. And if the bees go down, so does modern agriculture with something like 70 percent of the crops and the food that we eat.”
Hanka says he encourages people to buy from organic farmers that don't use harsh pesticides that can kill bees. He says if there's a demand for organic food, other farmers will provide it. But even if you're not for the organic movement, Hanka says he hopes everyone who sees his work thinks differently about the honey bee.
“There’s the sort of downer, wet-blanket aspect of all this that we do need to pay attention to, but it has to be sweetened up," Hanka says.
"It has to come with artwork, with a story, with something that’s beautiful that makes you want to hold it, touch it, and smell it—and think kindly about these creatures. Not as nasty insects with stingers, but as these beautiful, cute, fuzzy things that make the honey we all like so much.”
