ON THE OCCASION OF PETER HOLST HENCKEL’S 60TH BIRTHDAY

SPECTA invites you all for a BIRTHDAY RECEPTION on Thursday February 19th at 15:00-18:00

The reception will be held at SPECTA, Peder Skrams Gade 13, DK-1054 Copenhagen K

We celebrate Peter Holst Henckel’s 60th birthday, by releasing a new work as a special edition in the World of Butterflies series. The work adds a new and independent chapter to World of Butterflies, an encyclopedic visual collection of 68 butterfly species from around the globe.

In the original series, each species was linked to specific historical and political events from its geographical area. Documentary photographs merged with the butterflies’ colors and scales, creating a double vision between the fragile beauty of nature and the violent political reality.

In the new work, the connection to a political context is established not by a documentary photograph, but by the silhouette of a current and omnipresent political figure, which literally eats its way into the butterfly’s wings and forms a visual fixation image.

The scientific precision remains: the butterfly’s correct Latin species name and locality are retained. Papilio aristodemus, one of the most endangered species in the United States and Central America, is under pressure from both climatic and human-made environmental impacts. The white silhouette cutting into the shape of the wings creates an ambiguous image in which nature’s immediate beauty and political reality intersect — and where the profile of power has almost imperceptibly altered the butterfly’s contour in its own image.

fact/info:

Peter Holst Henckel

World of Butterflies, Fig. 119, 2026

Fine Art Print / Hahnemühle Mat 210g

Mounted on 3 mm Dibond

30 x 24 cm + frame

Framed in black or wengé frame

Edition of 60 + 5 AP

DKK 3,500 incl. frame

If you are interested in this butterfly, please feel free to get in touch by email gitte@specta.dk.

The butterflies will “land” in the gallery on Wednesday February 18, framed in black.
If you prefer a wengé frame, they will arrive the following week.