Peter Lav Gallery |

News | 30.10.2008

if you give me the mountains i will ask for the sea, from 26 september – 1 november 2008.

Scroll for dansk tekst

matti blind
         ingo gerken
                   carsten gliese
                                 sofia hultén
                                           jakob jensen
                                                       wolfgang plöger
                                               lucy powell
                           egill sæbjörnsson
             wolf von kries
tilman wendland

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Installation view

peter lav PHOTO GALLERY has invited one of its Danish artists, Jakob Jensen, to curate a group exhibition. The purpose of the exhibition is to introduce new foreign artists, all of whom are installation artists, to the Copenhagen art scene. Jakob Jensen’s object is to show their alternative approaches to the photographic medium.

They way the installation artists employ the photographic medium is just as diverse as the individual artists. The medium is adapted to the project, and often the artifice is very simple, even though it turns everything upside down. The exhibition title points to man’s perpetual dissatisfaction with what he has and to his enquiring spirit. Once having experienced one thing, curiosity drives us towards the next thing and the next one indefinitely.

The participating artists change the motif, turn it on its head, reflect it in human relations, the whole time attempting to broaden the framework for understanding, and to confuse the viewer in order to pave the way for alternative ways of understanding the surrounding world.

Installation artists employ the photograph as documentation, as a frame of reference, for counting and recording, in order to portray the personal, the general, the political, the historically important, the overlooked and the photographic medium itself. The role of the viewer is often in focus. The pictures can be found on the internet, in books and in magazines, and they can be borrowed from history archives. They can shoot them themselves, hire a photographer or collect them from private persons, find them in the street and take pictures of them. They can be cut and torn across, glued together, printed at home, attached to a mail or enclosed in a letter, turned into posters, thrown off balconies and planes, turned into sculptures, crumpled up, animated, double exposed, projected on each other and on a particular building or surface, run over, printed on a t-shirt, tattooed on the skin and described only in words. All forms are open.

Matti Blind (DE) combines historical graffiti slogans and found photographs of white houses, assembled in a slide show and shown in video form on a white television. Ingo Gerken (DE) lets a tripod capture the motif in motion instead of capturing the camera. A cloud in the distance becomes part of a sculptural performance, like a sudden implosion spiriting the camera away from the tripod, placing it inside the viewer. Carsten Gliese (DE) creates light sculptures frozen in three-dimensional spaces. Through photo and text, Sofia Hultén (SE) depicts the wish to move an object through the power of imagination. Jakob Jensen (DK) has found an album cover showing in an almost voodoo-like manner a transformation between an ordinary girl and her music idol. Wolfgang Plöger (DE) has “cropped” all of Google’s images resulting from one particular search and fixed them in book form. Lucy Powell (UK) depicts sheep’s ability to remember, just like human beings, “the faces” of their friends. In his video installation, Egill Sæbjörnsson (IS) allows us to have a look at a certain object from different angles, even though neither object nor viewer is in motion. Wolf von Kries (DE) has juxtaposed isles and pools of water as perfect positives and negatives of each other. Tilman Wendland (DE) always employs the movement of paper as a sculptural element, and he shows a magazine-like graphical work in which photo and paper refer to the idioms of well-known architects.

Artist CV:

CV Ingo Gerken (DE)

CV Carsten Gliese (DE)

CV Sofia Hultén (SE)

CV Jakob Jensen (DK)

CV Wolfgang Plöger (DE)

CV Egill Sæbjörnsson (IS)

CV Lucy Powell (UK)

CV Wolf von Kries (DE)

CV Tilman Wendland (DE)

The project is sponsored by the Danish Arts Council.

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Dansk tekst

peter lav PHOTO GALLERY har bedt galleriets danske kunstner Jakob Jensen om at kuratere en gruppeudstilling. Udgangspunktet for udstillingen er at introducere nye udenlandske kunstnere til den københavnske kunstscene. De er alle installationskunstnere, og Jakob Jensen ønsker at vise deres alternative tilgang til fotomediet.

Installationskunstnernes omgang med fotomediet er ligeså forskellig som hver eneste kunstner. Mediet tilpasses projektet, og ofte er grebet meget enkelt, men vender alting på hovedet. Udstillingens titel beskriver menneskets evige utilfredshed med det man har, men også dets evige søgen. Lige så snart man har set en ting, driver nysgerrigheden os til at ville se det næste og det næste i uendelighed.

De deltagende kunstnere ændrer motivet, stiller det på hovedet, spejler det i menneskelige forhold og vil hele tiden udvide forståelsesrammen og forvirre for at åbne alternative måder at forstå omverden på.

Fotografiet bruges som dokumentation, sammenligningsgrundlag, optælling og registrering, til at beskrive det personlige, det almene, politiske, historisk vigtige, det oversete eller fotomediet selv. Beskuerens rolle er tit i fokus. Billederne kan findes på internettet, i bøger og magasiner og erhverves fra historiske arkiver. Man kan skyde dem selv, ansætte en fotograf, eller indsamle dem fra privatpersoner, finde dem på gaden og affotografere dem. De kan klippes og rives over, klæbes sammen, printes derhjemme, vedlægges en mail eller et brev, plakateres, smides ud fra balkoner og flyvemaskiner, laves til skulptur, krølles sammen, animeres, dobbelbelyses, projiceres på hinanden og på en bestemt bygning eller overflade, køres over, bæres på en t-shirt, tatoveres på huden og beskrives kun med ord. Alle former er åbne.

Matti Blind (DE) forbinder historiske graffitislogans med fundne fotos af hvide villaer, samlet i et diasshow vist som video på et hvidt TV. Ingo Gerken (DE) lader et fotostativ fastholde motivet i sin bevægelse i stedet for at fastholde kameraet. En sky i det fjerne bliver en del af en skulpturel forestilling, som en pludselig implosion der tryller kameraet væk fra stativet og ind i betragteren. Carsten Gliese (DE) modellerer lysskulpturer, der fryses fast i tredimensionelle rum. Sofia Hultén (SE) beskriver i foto og tekst ønsket om at kunne bevæge et objekt v.h.a. forestillingens kraft. Jakob Jensen (DK) har fundet et pladecover, der på næsten voodoo-agtig måde viser en transformation mellem en almindelig pige og hendes musikidol. Wolfgang Plöger (DE) har afgræsset alle Google´s billeder fra en bestemt søgning og fikseret dem i bogform. Lucy Powell (UK) beskriver fårs evne til at huske sine venners ansigter på samme måde som mennesker. Egill Sæbjörnsson (IS) lader os i en videoinstallation se et objekt fra flere perspektiver, selvom både objektet og beskueren står stille. Wolf von Kries (DE) har sammenstillet øer og vandpytter som perfekte positive og negative aftryk af hinanden. Tilman Wendland (DE) bruger altid papirs bevægelse som et skulpturelt element, og han viser et magasinlignende grafisk værk, hvor foto og papir forholder sig til kendte arkitekters formsprog.