In November 2026, Julie Tresson, intern at Olivier Cornet Gallery, wrote about Annika Berglund's Soaring I, available to purchase for 1,150.00 Euro.

"In the collective imagination, there is a fascination with these beings whom we picture as transcending their own condition, as if their genius were lifting them into a higher sphere, far from the burdens of human existence. It is this idea that is explored in ‘Soaring I’, a sculpture by the artist Annika Berglund.

The work was presented as part of the exhibition ‘Élévation’, organised in early November 2016 to coincide with the Vue Art Fair. The exhibition was subsequently extended as a Winter Show, running from December 2016 to January 2017, at the Olivier Cornet Gallery. On this occasion, Olivier Cornet invited the gallery’s artists to offer their interpretation of Charles Baudelaire’s poem ‘Élévation’, the third poem in the ‘Spleen et Idéal’ section of ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’.

This choice is by no means insignificant; Baudelaire is one of those poets whose verses seem to capture the contradictions of the human condition, torn between the aspiration to the ideal and the inevitable confrontation with reality. His work explores this constant tension between the desire for the absolute, the quest for beauty and the painful experience of existence. A voice which, far beyond the boundaries of French literature and the passage of time, continues to resonate with many readers and artists.

In ‘Élévation’, Baudelaire imagines a soul capable of breaking free from its earthly surroundings to soar towards a realm of freedom and transcendence:

My soul, you move with ease,
And like a strong swimmer in rapture amidst the waves
You wing your way blithely through boundless space
With virile joy beyond words.

In these verses selected by Annika Berglund, the soul is conceived as a force in motion. The comparison with the swimmer who cuts through the waves with ease is particularly revealing: ascension is not described as a laborious endeavour, but as an experience of fluidity. Space becomes boundless, whilst the body seems to lose its hold on the soul.

The very title of the section, ‘Spleen et Idéal’, expresses a fundamental contrast: on the one hand, the yearning for beauty, the infinite and the absolute; on the other, the burden of an earthly existence whose limitations the poet feels painfully. It also addresses the frustration of an ideal that is everdesired but rarely attained. Baudelaire invokes weightlessness: the soul’s ascent to a place beyond the reach of the world’s gravity.

Whilst this image of the soul taking flight forms the starting point for Annika Berglund’s work, the artist nevertheless chooses to offer it a certain resistance. However far our thoughts and intellect may take us, we remain irrevocably bound to the physical world, its demands and the ordinary realities of existence. Rather than seeking to free herself from a condition that is imposed on artists as much as on the rest of us, she explores the tension that binds body and mind, and attempts to reconcile them.

This duality is expressed in the very materiality of ‘Soaring I’.

What strikes one first is the contrast between the two components of the work. Two bronze wings slender, irregular and almost fragile, emerge from a compact, imposing mass. The wings hold the promise of a flight that will never take place. The block, for its part, imposes its density, its weight and its immobility. Everything is built upon this duality: flight and grounding, lightness and heaviness, height and connection to the earth. The wings do not break free from their base. They remain frozen, bound to a mass that seems both to support them and to hold them back. Flight is suggested, but never achieved.

This raises a question: is the plinth what prevents the wings from rising, or what enables them to exist? One might see in this everything that ties us to the burden of the human condition: our bodies, our needs, material constraints and the obligations of daily life – everything from which we would sometimes like to break free.

However, the aim here is to turn this interpretation on its head. Without this mass, where would the wings derive their origin? It is from the bronze that flight is born: the plinth is the very condition for it. This interpretation takes on an additional dimension when applied to the concept of artistic genius. For a long time, art history has associated the greatness of the artist with a form of exceptionalism. Annika Berglund rejects this portrayal of a mind that has definitively freed itself from its humanity. On the contrary, she emphasises not only the impossibility, but also the futility, of such a separation. ‘Soaring I’ does not, therefore, appear to pit the body against the mind: it seeks to reconcile them. The work reminds us that creation does not require one to detach oneself from one’s human condition in order to attain a form of greatness. Perhaps it is precisely by remaining in touch with the world, its materiality and its contradictions, that the artist finds the possibility to create. It is not a question of renouncing elevation, but of understanding that it remains forever embedded in matter.”

Julie Tresson, 12 November 2026

Note: This essay was written in French originally. Click here to see Julie's text in French