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Contemporary Obsessions Alexandra Leykauf / Inge Ellegaard / Matts Leiderstam
Mika Rottenberg / René Schmidt / Simon Evans™
Contemporary Obsessions
Contemporary Obsessions kredser om den lystbetonede og
nærsynede undersøgelse af tingene. Udstillingen samler en
række meget forskellige kunstnere, hvis værker har det til fæl
les, at de med stor intensitet fordyber sig i forskellige emner
eller materialer på jagt efter særlige sammenhænge og syste
mer. Overalt bliver noget nærstuderet idet kunstnerne lader
tankerne rejse ind i materialet og sammenstiller det i nye se
kvenser, der afslører ukendte eller oversete forbindelser.
Det er på mange måder et af grundtrækkene ved den kunst
neriske skabelse at kaste et detaljeorienteret eller skævt blik
på verden; at finde mønstre i et genstandsfelt og vride nye
betydninger ud af dem. Det er på én gang en interesse, der
er i tiden og samtidig et kunstnerisk grundvilkår, der altid har
eksisteret – der har altid været kunstnere, der var besatte af
at male et bestemt bjerg eller at indfange træernes flimrende
løv; af at udforske hudens nuancer eller draperiernes abstrak
te tredimensionalitet. Det er de forskellige måder, hvorpå en
sådan skarpsynet, pertentlig eller manisk tilgang til stoffet i
kunsten i dag kan give sig udtryk, der er udgangspunktet for
denne udstilling. Udstillingen postulerer ikke at skabe et over
blik over disse forskellige strategier, men er simpelthen en
invitation til at lade sig rive med af de malstrømme og særlige
universer, der kan opstå, når kunstnere dykker ned i et mate
riale med en særlig overspændt intensitet.
Under navnet Simon Evans™ skaber Simon Evans sammen
med sin partner Sarah Lannan detaljerede collager, der ofte
er sammensat af bittesmå papirlapper indsamlet fra deres
hverdag – busbilletter, visitkort, emballage, servietter mm. De
små papirstykker, der ofte er fyldt med udklippede eller hånd
skrevne ord, limes, tapes eller væves sammen og tegner til
sammen en form for kort over kunstnernes hverdag og tanker.
Værkerne kan tage form som diagrammer, kort, lister, over
sigter, anskuelsestavler eller registre over forskellige emner,
der har dækket alt fra Everything I Have (2008), Symptoms
of Loneliness (2009), og How to Get Lost (2012) til denne
udstillings værker med titler som Archive of slogans #3 (2018),
How to Date Your Mum / How to Bury Your Dad (2019) og
Relic (2019). Tegninger, sætninger og udklippede elementer
præsenteres med en imponerende detaljerigdom, eller i en
overvældende mængde, der antyder, at oversigterne over
emnerne er komplette og eller meningsfulde. Hurtigt afsløres
det imidlertid, hvordan absurde kategoriseringer og fjollerier
blander sig med konkret poesi eller smukke, hjerteskærende
udsagn. I Archive of slogans #3 er der på forskellige kort skre
vet fiktive, sarkastiske slogans som ”I vote yes for objective
rea lity, I’ve noticed all the words are fake, Democracy is under
attack quick get the chocolate icecream” og ”What I do is tri
vial but if I didn’t I’d do less”. I Divine Comedy (2016) er hele
Dantes guddommelige komedie skrevet på kartotekskort –
nogle i hånden andre med udklippede bogstaver, men kun
det første og det sidste kort kan ses eftersom alle de andre
er stablet tæt i en horisontal række, og således skjuler hele
det enorme tekstarbejde – det er selve ophobningen frem for
det arkiverede indhold, som er værkets pointe.
På trods af den minutiøse kortlægning – eller rettere på grund
af den – skaber værkerne aldrig et samlet overblik over et om
råde, men snarere nærsynede, idiosynkratiske registre, hvor
overblikket fortaber sig i delelementerne. Stumper fra den vir
kelige verden bliver til labyrintiske fortællinger, hvor man som
beskuer farer vild i informationerne og ender i tålmodigt
elaborerede blindgyder.
Det skulpturelle værk a tomb (2017) består af en skotøjsæske,
hvori Evans’ børneværelse er genskabt i miniformat – komplet
med bogreoler, dartskive, pladespiller, opslagstavle og holder
til blyanter. Tilskyndelsen til at skabe værket op stod, da Evans
forældre efter et langt ægteskab pludselig skulle skilles. Han
tænkte derfor tilbage på sin barndom og huskede, hvordan
hans mor hjalp ham med at rekonstruere en egyptisk grav i
en skotøjsæske. Værket hviler således både på en meget per
sonlig omstændighed og på en almen interesse for det gamle
Ægypten og knytter desuden an til en generel fascination af
miniatureuniverset og ideen om at kunne overskue den store
verden ved hjælp af en lille model.
At de to kunstnere sammen kan skabe værker, der har et så
individuelt, personligt udgangspunkt, vidner om deres tætte
arbejdsrelation. De har næsten identisk håndskift, og som
deres gallerist James Cohan har sagt det: ”My understanding
is they operate as one being”. Det, der for beskueren føles
som en rejse ind i en kunstners helt singulære, mageløse
tankebaner og associationsveje, bliver næsten endnu mere
forunderlig af faktisk at være opstået i en udveksling mellem
to personers hjernebark.
De fleste af Simon Evans™ værker er tekstbaserede, og
Evans var da også på vej til at blive forfatter, da han ople
vede, at ordene i stigende grad krævede deres eget fysiske
rum løsrevet fra den mening, de var en del af. Lannan starte
de omvendt fra grafisk design, og de zoomede så at sige
fra hver deres side ind på den billedlige, materielle side af
skriften, som noget der har lige så stor betydning som den
indholdsmæssige. Ofte er ordene i deres værker skrevet på
hvert sit lille stykke papir, hvis farvenuancer og tekstur varie
rer og skaber en vibrerende, levende helhed. Papirlapperne
er ofte småkrøllede og slidte efter at have været gennem
kunstnernes hænder. Dette skaber en tæt forbindelse til det
levede liv, men forstærker også det indtryk af skrøbelighed,
der gennemsyrer værkerne både på et stofligt og et psykolo
gisk plan. Samtidig vidner det om den omhyggelige proces
med at finde præcis den tekststump eller præcis det stykke
papir at skrive på.
Den overfokuserede fortabelse i detaljen modarbejder vær
kernes struktur, der er en søgen efter overblik og klarhed.
Som Simon Evans selv har formuleret det: ”Categorizing is
what humans do, and obsession is what is involved in any
thing you’re passionate about. I like the typical repetition of
rituals, of punishment and worship, jogging laps, or doing
yantras. It’s a beautiful cartoon of futile human acts. When
working, I prefer to riff in a picture, so I don’t have to wear
myself out with drastic choices, or be scared to be brave”.1
Strategien er at blive ved de små, stædigt gentagne elemen
ter og gestikker, der æder sig ind på meningen i bidder, frem
for at kaste sig ud i de overgribende udsagn med store arm
bevægelser. Set fra den position forstår man, når Lannan til
føjer: ”People surprise me when they comment on the obses
sive qualities of the work… I can only add that it doesn’t feel
obsessive.” For den udefra kommende beskuer træder det
obsessive imidlertid tydeligt frem og kommer bl.a. helt konkret
til udtryk ved, at man simpelthen for at læse de mange små
tekster skal have næsen lige så tæt på værkerne, som kunst
nerne har haft.
Her mærker man så, hvordan man suges ind i værkernes
associative malstrøm.
Ligesom Simon Evans™ bruger René Schmidt eksisterende
billeder – her dog af naturvidenskabelig art – løsrevet fra
deres kontekst til at skabe sin egen vildtvoksende formver
den. Og også for ham er nærstudiet et udgangspunkt, men
hans blik er zoomet helt ind i stoffets bestanddele. Han har
nemlig baseret en række store skulpturer i udstillingen på
naturvidenskabelige fotografier af kiselalger taget gennem
mikroskop, som afslører de svimlende smukke og komplekse
strukturer, som kiselalger er opbygget af. Flere af værktitler
ne indeholder ordet diatom, som er en betegnelse for disse
små encellede alger, hvis cellevægge består af kisel og
silikat i indviklede dekorative mønstre. De uanseelige levende
organismer i nanostørrelse er ansvarlige for via fotosyntese
at skabe 20% af alt ilt på jorden, og Schmidt beskæftiger sig
så ledes med strukturer, der har fundamental betydning for
hele klodens opbygning og velbefindende. Hans skulpturer
er modelleret som geometriske former i et 3Dprogram efter
inspiration fra kiselalgernes mønstre og er derefter enten
3Dprintede eller støbt i forme. Mange af overfladerne er her
efter blevet bearbejdet med skum, maling, lim og tynde ny
lonfibre, som ved hjælp af statisk elektricitet samler sig i små
flokke og sætter sig fast på skulpturerne som små fimrehår
eller børster. Resultatet er skulpturer med enorme overflade
arealer med millioner af enkeltdele, hvor geometriske, fraktale
mønstre blander sig med mere tilfældige organiske strukture
ringsprincipper.
René Schmidt har i en årrække interesseret sig for relationen
mellem naturens og arkitekturens måder at organisere mate
riale på. Den moderne arkitektur siden funktionalismen har
været præget af en streng enkelthed med kuben som grund
læggende byggesten. Moderne byggeri er i høj grad baseret
på moduler i standardmål, der skal imødekomme de ingeniør
mæssige krav om prisbillig produktion, industriel praktik og
sikkerhed. Selvom det i dag er praktisk muligt at producere
komplekse enheder, der passer sammen på millimeter, til
stræber man oftest et enkelt ydre. Kompleksiteten i rørførin
ger, elektricitet, dræn, isolering og andre funktionelle elemen
ter gemmes væk bag glatte overflader. Både naturens og
arkitekturens konstruktionsprincipper bygger på matematiske,
funktionelle principper, men i den moderne arkitektur er disse
principper, i Schmidts optik, stivnet i en monolitisk, fejlfri form,
mens naturens algoritmer konstant muterer og udvikler sig.
Det er denne konstante, levende bevægelse og kompleksitet,
han ønsker at indarbejde i sine skulpturer ved at give plads til
uventede fejl og fremelske tilfældige udsving, der forårsager
udskridninger og variationer i formen.
Som betragter oplever man hans store objekter som overvæl
dende og så fulde af bittesmå detaljerede formationer, at blik
ket har svært ved at forstå, hvad det ser. Værkerne kræver
således lang tids nærstudier, hvor man både føres ind i skulp
turen ad geometriske spiralformer og møder stoffets ureger
lighed.
Schmidt har tidligere interesseret sig for den gotiske arkitek
tur, som i modsætning til den funktionalistiske består af et utal
af små elementer sammensat i et organisk, ornamenteret
hele. I hans Gotiske Skur i Skovsnogen Deep Forest Artland
bærer unikke, individuelt udformede søjler støbt i rå beton på
en ornamenteret, komposit overbygning, og den arkitektoni
ske skulptur giver et på samme tid fabulerende poetisk og
gotisk grotesk udtryk.
Mens funktionalismen altid har påkaldt sig hæderlighed frem
for spekulative ornamenter, demonstrerer Schmidt, hvordan
han ved ligeledes at basere sine skulpturer på sobre, funktio
nelle naturvidenskabelige systemer, samtidig frembringer en
kompleks, dekorativ
detaljerigdom. Hans
skulpturer kan således i
al deres levende, orga
niske abstraktion ses
som en kritik af moder
nismens funktionalistiske
princip og livløse syste
miske struktur.
En anden af udstillingens kunstnere, Alexandra Leykauf er
ligeledes optaget af struktur og liv. I videoværket Everybody’s
Autobiography (2015) arrangerer hun en række udvalgte selv
biografiske bøger i et forløb, hvor titlerne tilsammen danner
en sammenhængende tekst. Videoens forløb er enkelt: Et
par hænder lægger en bog på et sort bord: Gertrud Steins
Everybody’s Autobiography. Bogen er opslået på titelsiden og
kunstnerens stemme læser titlen op med umiskendelig tysk
accent. Bogen udskiftes med en anden selvbiografi, og stem
men fortsætter sin oplæsning med en tør, faktuel intonering.
Titlerne kobler sig betydningsmæssigt til hinanden på forskel
lig vis: Is That All There Is?, I Believed, There’s No Answer to
That!! Uneasy Lies the Head. As I Remember, My Own Story,
The Statue Within, World Within World, Stop the World, In My
Own Name. What Am I Doing Here, In the Center of Things….
Med Leykaufs stemme som guide fletter forfatternes individu
elle liv sig sammen til en fælles fortælling – jævnfør titlen –
og indkapsler selve ideen om den autobiografiske fortælling.
På samme måde tegner bøgernes titelsider et visuelt felt for,
hvordan selvfortællinger kan præsentere sig. Alle disse forfat
teres liv og verdener åbner sig i et glimt for en. Man bliver
nysgerrig på deres liv og bøger, og når undervejs at fantasere
om, hvad der ligger bag alle disse titler. Hvordan er en selv
biografi, der hedder Don’t Laugh at Me? Eller en der hedder
Man Without a Face? Hvordan sammenfatter man et liv? Med
hvilken ordlyd ville man repræsentere sig selv? Som beskuer
kan man forholde sig til hvilken titel, der kunne passe på ens
eget liv, og lede efter de matricer, der fornemmes i titlerne.
Gennem den sirlige organisering af andre forfatteres selvbio
grafier tegner kunstneren således dels et portræt af sig selv,
dels af selve ideen om selvfremstilling.
Videoen slutter med, at Leykauf siger ”Das war es” (Det var
det); en lille rest fra optagelsessituationen, som på den ene
side giver en vis lethed til værket, men som på den anden side
også kunne være titlen på kunstnerens egen selvbiografi.
Videoværket ledsages af små fysiske modeller af bogskulp
turer, der hver består af et foldet ark med titelbladet på inder
siden og metalfolie på ydersiden, der spejler beskueren og
dermed indoptager beskuerens ansigt i værket. Vi sættes så
at sige på forsiden af den selvbiografi, vi kigger på.
Også i Leykaufs serie Faces (2019) bliver ansigter bragt frem i
selve betragtningen af værket. Her har hun indsamlet reproduk
tioner af landskabsmalerier, som med hendes egne ord ”så
på hende”. Billederne dækkes af lysfølsom emulsion og over
hældes med sand, hvorefter alt andet end ”ansigtet” graves
frit og bliver sort i fremkaldelsesprocessen. I Max L. bliver et
vindue og en foroverbøjet kvinde til hvert sit øje, mens en vas
kebalje udgør munden. I Henri R. bliver en skulptur på en ste
le til næse og mund. I transformationen fra ”landskab” til ”por
træt” sker der på en gang en abstraktion og en surrealistisk
figuration. Værkerne har titler efter den oprindelige kunstners
fornavn, og det er som om Leykauf så at sige leder efter
malernes ansigter bag billedet. Som om hun tilegner sig land
skaberne gennem betragtningen, gør dem til sine egne og i
denne proces bliver så intim med kunstnerne, at hun kommer
på fornavn med dem og ”fremkalder” deres portræt. Et por
træt, der samtidig er hendes eget, idet det er opstået inde i
hende, gennem hendes blik på billederne.
Leykauf bidrager desuden med tre fotografier, der ligeledes
intensivt gransker andre kunstneres værker. Eksempelvis
La Tempesta (Giorgione) (2016), hvor man ser en opslået bog
med et billede af Giorgiones maleri Stormen. Ovenpå bogen
ligger en mobiltelefon med et billede af Leykauf’s tøj hængen
de på et badekar. Tøjet mimer et stykke klæde i maleriet, og
bliver en form for målestok, der sætter maleriets og kunstne
rens to rum i relation til hinanden. Værket sammensmelter
på denne måde flere forskellige medier, rum og repræsentati
onsformer, hver med sin betragtningssituation: Maleren, der
betragter landskabet; fotografen, der optager en reproduktion
af maleriet; Leykaufs blik ned på bogen og beskuerens eget
blik på værket. Adskillige billedverdener foldes ind i hinanden i
en kalejdoskopisk helhed.
Også Matts Leiderstam har nærstuderet bøger med repro
duktioner af de gamle mestres værker. I serien After Image
(201012) udpeger han detaljer og sammenhænge i ældre
malerier ved at fotografere de opslåede kunstbøger, mens han
med en finger, forstørrelsesglas eller lup peger på de områder,
han ønsker at henlede opmærksomheden på. Leiderstams
tilgang har flere træk til fælles med Leykaufs, men mens hun
har fokus på mediernes formelle egenskaber og billedverde
ners spejling af hinanden, så har Leiderstam ofte en identitets
politisk optik i sine nærstudier. Således er det, han påpeger
i de kunsthistoriske billeder ofte oversete detaljer, tvetydige
under toner og antydede homoerotiske relationer: Særligt
kokette håndstillinger, som han til tider efterligner med sin
pegende hånd, en halvåben gylp på et par 1700tals herre
bukser, falliske steler, eruptive vulkaner, og sanselige detaljer
hvor f.eks. en kardinal dypper et stykke brød i sit vinglas,
mens han smilende kigger en anden kardinal i øjnene.
Hans visuelle logik og argumentationsform kan minde om
den, David Hockney bruger i sin film The Secret Knowledge
(2002). Her zoomer han ind på detaljer i renæssancemalerier,
der kunne tyde på, at malerne siden renæssancen har brugt
camera obscura og andre præfotografiske, optiske teknikker
til at indfange motivet med på lærredet, så de blot kunne føl
ge det optiske billedes omrids. Han påpeger f.eks det overra
skende store antal af venstrehåndede modeller, der kunne
forklares ved at et optisk apparat har spejlvendt billedet osv.
På samme måde som man i Hockneys film får et detektivisk
øje for optikkens visuelle markører, opbygger Matts Leider
stams værker et begær hos beskueren efter at se de for
skellige udtryk, bevægelser og detaljer, som det almindelige,
normative blik ikke har fået øje på eller ikke tillægger betyd
ning. Man suges så at sige ind ikke blot i bøgerne og billeder
ne, men også ind i kunstnerens vedholdende forfølgelse af de
særlige elementer. Hans queer blik på tingene sker ofte med
et hu moristisk glimt i øjet, når han ser på de gamle mestre
udfra nu ti dige billede og kønskonventioner.
Leiderstams interesse for kunsthistorien kommer til udtryk
på en anden måde i de to installatoriske værker fra serien
Unknown Unknown (2014). Fælles for disse værker er, at de
tager udgangspunkt i portrætmalerier forestillende os ukendte
modeller, malet af kunstnere, der ligeledes er os ubekendte.
Men vigtigst er det, at malerierne – lidt som hos Leykauf – har
vakt interesse i kunstneren; tændt et begær efter at tilegne
sig værket og lære det og dets model bedre at kende. Male
rierne – som enten er købt i antikvitetsforretninger og på auk
tioner eller reproduceres med for og bagside – gransker han
intenst for at finde ud af, hvor høj modellen cirka har været.
Herefter installeres malerierne ud fra denne højde. Nogle hæn
ges ud fra væggen ”med siden til”, mens andre monteres på
stativer og udstyres med ekstra malerier, han selv har malet
for at give de portrætterede ansigter en ”krop”, så de kan
stå midt i rummet. Der ligger en rørende omsorg i den måde,
Leiderstam har håndteret f.eks maleriet i Unknown Woman
(2014), renset det, spændt det op, bygget en krop til det og i
det hele taget forsøgt at gå til det med en interesse som var
det levende personer. Som i portrættet af Dorian Gray skæn
ker maleren maleriet og dets dobbelt ukendte aktører et nyt
liv – en identitet og et rum, det kan være og give betydning i.
Disse personager – eller livsmasker, som han kalder dem –
fremstår på en gang tydeligt som malerier og som personer
i rummet. De tydeliggør transformationen fra model til maleri
og tilbage igen, og med sig bærer de markører fra den tid de
oprindeligt blev skabt i. De er i rummet ligesom beskuerne,
og Leiderstams ønske hermed er, efter eget udsagn, at æn
dre vores forventninger til hvad det vil sige at møde et maleri
i et museum eller et galleri.
Mika Rottenberg opsporer som flere andre af udstillingens
kunstnere eksotiske eller groteske elementer i eksisterende
billeder. Ved at gennemtrawle internettets store billedhav fin
der hun frem til personer der reklamerer for deres særlige
karakteristika: usædvanligt store kroppe, akrobatiske evner,
ekstremt lange negle eller andet. Disse personer indsætter
hun i barokke, monstrøse og parodiske fantasiverdener. Ofte
skaber hun en form for fabrik, eller et absurd produktionsap
parat, der benytter de medvirkendes kropslige egenart i en
kritisk parodi på kapitalismens logik. Mange gange indgår
transportbånd, tunneler og rørføringer, der transporterer de
besynderlige produkter, der produceres rundt i det gakkede
system.
René Schmidt, Det Gotiske Skur, 2019. Foto Morten Kromann.
I videoværket Study #4 (Short Variant) (2019) foregår der
ingen fremstilling af produkter, her er det de medvirkende
personer der ”fremstilles”, eller fremkaldes i korte sekvenser.
Filmen foregår i et besynderligt rødt interiør, og er optaget i
det ”græske rum” på The Pocono Resort i USA. Der er ild i
pejsen og et flere meter højt coctailglas med et indbygget
springvand står mellem falske kannelerede søjler og en repro
duktion af et antikt maleri. Lyden af springvandet og den knit
rende ild i pejsen forstyrres af gentagne puff!, samtidig med
at hvid røg pludselig opstår i midten af rummet, som fra en
tryllekunstners stav eller magnesium pulver fra en gammel
dags blitz. Efter flere forsøg fremkaldes en række figurer i
røgen én efter én: en overvægtig sort kvinde med balletskørt,
som snurrer rundt og rundt, mens hendes fødder stamper i
gulvtæppet og laver en rytmisk lyd; en kvindelig vægtløfter, der
stønnende løfter sin vægtstang og forsvinder igen; en mandlig
bodybuilder, der spænder sine ekstreme glinsende muskler til
en knirkende lyd; en kvinde der stikker en ekstremt lang tun
ge frem; og en anden kvinde der ryster sit ubegribeligt lange
hår. Lydsiden er overdreven og repetetiv og giver sammen
med billederne en tegneserieagtig effekt. Stemningen er drøm
mende, teatralsk a la David Lynch, og er på en gang fascine
rende, morsom og dybt urovækkende.
Ligesom Leykaufs Everybody’s Autobiography kredser Mika
Rottenbergs værk om selvrepræsentation. Her er det ikke
gennem selvbiografier de medvirkende repræsenteres, men
gennem deres kroppe. En af Rottenbergs overordnede be
stræbelser er at skabe en scene for kvinder, der ikke under
kaster sig samfundets normer for køn og konventionelle for
ventninger til skønhed, men som samtidig opererer inden for
og forvrænger det kapitalistiske system ved at ”sælge sig
selv” på nettet. I værket optræder de nærmest som et drøm
mesyn i Rottenbergs fantasi, der udvikler sig i en tiltagende
bizar retning. Man fornemmer en dyb fascination af disse
karakterer og deres fortryllende hår og imponerende kroppe,
en ægte kærlighed og opbakning til dem, der flittigt opdyrker
og perfektionerer deres anderledeshed. Samtidig sidder man
tilbage med en følelse af at være afkoblet fra virkeligheden
og med accelererende fart på vej ned til Alice i kaninhullet.
De virkelige steder, ting og ikke mindst de virkelige menne
sker væves sammen i en forførende associationskæde, der
skaber og afslører både skønheden, magien og absurditeten
ved vores moderne eksistens. Det ekstreme, spektakulære
og kunstige træder frem, og den fascinerende, billige sceno
grafi forstærker fornemmelsen af forbrugssamfundets amok
løb.
I en anden version af værket vises videoen gennem en lille
sprække mellem et par kunstige, rygende læber som sidder
på væggen. Her skal man således have sit øje helt hen til
læberne, for at se, hvilket forstærker fornemmelsen af et nær
synet blik på verden. Men uanset versioneringen får man for
nemmelsen af, at nok er værkets fiktion vidunderligt mærkelig,
men den peger på en virkelighed, der er endnu mere utrolig.
Udover videoværker præsenterer Mika Rottenberg desuden
en serie tegninger på papir. Her optræder små fritsvævende
tegn som en slags alfabet til den verden, hun skaber i sine
videoer: næser, cirkler, tunger, numser og andre symboler.
Tegningerne kan læses som en slags storyboards, eller node
ark, der beskriver en form for handlingforløb.
Udstillingens sidste kunstner er afdøde Inge Ellegaard
(19532010). I hendes værker optræder det obsessive element
i form af den stædige gentagelse ved at betragte det samme
motiv igen og igen. I starten af 1990erne foretog Ellegaard
en række insisterende studier af amaryllisser, som hun i den
periode malede hver eneste dag. Med ufortrøden vedholden
hed satte hun sig hver morgen til at male dagens amaryllis i
den tilstand af opblomstring eller forfald, den nu befandt sig i.
Serien vidner både om en umættelig lyst til at undersøge de
motiviske muligheder i denne blomst, men også om en repe
titiv, næsten ritualiseret handling. Den tilbagevendende søgen
efter noget i denne blomst blev til en strukturerende handling i
hverdagen – et åndehul hvor den obsessive koncentration
om blomsten gav mening i en svær periode i hendes liv.
Inge Ellegaard brød igennem som en af De Unge Vilde malere
i 1980erne, og beskrev dengang sin egen og sin generations
postmoderne indstilling til maleriet med stor præcision: ”Ele
menterne i mine billeder henviser til sig selv. Billederne er rent
sprog, der følger billedsprogets syntaks. Det er i høj grad
konstrueret vrøvl. Kunsten er for mig, at jeg har været her.
Men det er en hård nød at knække at skulle producere noget,
der er interessant, uden at mene noget med det. At billeder
ne så ligner normal billedkunst er min private joke”.2 Indhold,
mening og motiv spillede en mindre rolle for hende end billed
sproget i sig selv og selve det at være til stede og sætte sit
aftryk med eftertryk. I 80erne var Ellegaards motiver typisk
eklektiske, mytologiske parafraser med titler som Venus og
Mars, Diana i Landskab og Månegudinde malet med brutale
penselstrøg og voldsomme farver. Senere indsatte hun typisk
gentagne figurer som blomster, ræve, bier eller flyvemaskiner
som løsrevne tegn over en enkel, abstrakt baggrund.
I Amaryllisserien er der ingen referencer til mytologi eller kunst
historiske genrebilleder. Der er naturligvis en vanitassymbolik,
der ikke er til at overse i skildringen af blomsternes op og
afblomstring, men der er ikke tale om deciderede parafraser
over genrerne stilleben eller blomstermaleri. Her er det den
enkelte blomsts sanselige fremtoning, det handler om. Hver
blomst er afbildet med intense penselstrøg og næsten køde
lige farver på papir i den tilstand, den befinder sig i. Midt i
det tilsyneladende pæne og banale motiv rusker en fanden
ivoldsk malerisk gestus, der bibringer en stor grad af nærvær
og energi i hvert værk. Man fornemmer med stor intensitet
vigtigheden i hendes udsagn om, at ”Kunsten er for mig, at
jeg har været her”. Det er, som om Ellegaard – der brugte sig
selv hårdt og på mange måder inkarnerede det hårde kunst
nerliv – hver morgen gennem den maleriske begejstring over
blomstens evige variation, kommer til stede for sig selv og
ruster sig til at møde verden.
Inge Ellegaards Amaryllisserie er ligesom mange af udstillin
gens øvrige værker et eksempel på, at den visuelle besættelse
af en ganske bestemt ting, på én gang kan være en virkelig
hedsflugt og et ønske om netop at dykke dybt ind i virkelig
heden – lidt ad gangen. Det er en måde at være i verden på,
hvor detaljerne kommer før helheden.
Gennemgående for udstillingens værker er, at det alt sammen
er noget, der starter i en intim betragtning; noget der kan starte
ved et skrivebord med papir og saks eller computer. Men det,
der tilsyneladende starter som individuelle nørderier for kunst
nerens egen skyld, bringer i virkeligheden et større perspektiv
med sig. Kunstnere forfølger – som det ofte har været kun
stens funktion – nogle generelle strømninger ud i overdrevet
eller opretter egne systemer og paralleluniverser, og kommer
derved til at kaste lys på systemiske fejl og konventioner og
pege på alternativer til magthavernes systemer, kønslige kon
ventioner, reproduktionsformer, arkitektur osv. men uden
parolens eller manifestets karakter. Der kan således i flere til
fælde være tale om en systemkritik som ikke er proklamato
risk, men holdt på et menneskeligt plan. Samfundets tilsynela
dende funktionelle instanser kammer over og bliver tossede.
Simon Evans™’s transformation af vejanvisninger, instruktioner
og kort, bliver til brugsforvirringer og vildledninger, hermed be
gynder samfundets opdrag at skride i de syntaktiske fuger. Hos
Schmidt ligger en kritik af samfundets sammenblanding af funk
tion og æstetik. Funktionalismens arkitektur skal kunne holdes
ren: overflader skal nemt kunne vaskes ned for graffiti, knop
per i belægningen skal hindre at hjemløse kan lægge sig ned.
Hermed kommer funktionalismen til at se mennesket som et
problem frem for at tjene den menneskelige funktion, der
bl.a. karakteriseres med udtryksglæde. Rottenberg skaber
vrangbilleder af den globale livsførelse, mens Leiderstam og
Leykauf særligt belyser billedkunstens konventioner og aftvin
ger de gængse reproduktionsformer alternative oplysninger.
Humoren eller den absurde munterhed fornemmes som et
ekko gennem mange af værkerne, den er det obsessives føl
gesvend og gennem den sker der i mange af værkerne en
undergravning af ensretning i samfundets ordener.
1 ID Magazine 16. 3.2016
2 Erik Svendsen og Anne Jerslev: Kunsten er for mig at jeg har været der,
Politisk revy nr. 445, 1983
Simon Evans™Artist duo
Sarah Lannan born 1984 in Phoenix, AZ and
Simon Evans born 1972 in London, England
Living and working in Brooklyn, NY
Archive of slogans #3 (for Jac Leirner), 2018
[SECOL18001]
Rhyming Opportunities, 2011
[SECOL11001]
a tomb, 2017
[SECOL17001]
Portrait of the Artist as a Capitalist Goat, 2019
[SECOL19002]
Relic, 2019
[SECOL19001]
Divine Comedy, 2016
[SECOL16001]
How to Date Your Mum / How to Bury Your Dad, 2019
[SECOL19003]
René SchmidtBorn 1968 in Viborg, Denmark
Lives and works in Viborg, Denmark
AsA (Diatom/ Stephanodiscus astraea, 2019
[RES19001]
ASEX (asexual reproduction, binary fission), 2019
[RES19003]
Gii (Diatom/ Thalassiosira weissflogii), 2019
[RES19004]
EIE (Diatom/ Ellerbeckia arenaria, 2019
[RES19005]
Alexandra LeykaufBorn 1976 in Nürnberg, Germany
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Everybody's Autobiography, 2015
[ALV15001]
La Tempesta (Giorgione) – Dessaur Strasse, 2016
[ALF16001]
Laubwald mit dem Heiligen Georg (Albrecht Altdorfer) – Dessauer Strasse, 2016
[ALF16002]
Meditation by the Sea (Anonymous) – mirror, 2015
[ALF15001]
Carl B. III, 2019
[ALF19006]
Isaak Iljitsch L., 2019
[ALF19013]
Carl B., 2019
[ALF19003]
Gijsbrecht L., 2019
[ALF19011]
Henri R., 2019
[ALF19012]
Max L., 2019
[ALF19015]
Fitz Hugh L., 2019
[ALF19009]
Aleksander G., 2019
[ALF19001]
Georgia O'K, 2019
[ALF19010]
August M., 2019
[ALF19002]
Wassily K., 2019
[ALF19018]
Wilhelm M., 2019
[ALF19019]
Carl B. IV, 2019
[ALF19005]
Caspar David F., 2019
[ALF19007]
Lyonel F., 2019
[ALF19014]
Paul C., 2019
[ALF19016]
Ferdinand H., 2019
[ALF19008]
Carl B. II, 2019
[ALF19004]
Matts LeiderstamBorn 1956 in Gothenburg, Sweden
Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden
SK-A-3035 (Unknown Unknown), 2014
[MAT14002
Unknown Woman, 2014
[MAT14001]
After Image (Eugen von Guérard), 2012
[MAT12007]
After Image (L'Eruption du Vésuve), 2011
[MAT11005]
After Image (The Cardinals' Friendly Chat), 2011
[MAT11002]
After Image (The 8th Duke of Hamilton with Dr John Moore and Ensign Moore), 2012
[MAT12002]
Mika RottenbergBorn 1976 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Lives and works in New York
Study #4 (Short Variant), 2019
[MRV19001]
m36, 2011
[MRZ11002]
m53, 2011
[MRZ11005]
Inge EllegaardBorn 1953 in Haastrup, Denmark
Died in Copenhagen, Denmark 2010
Amaryllis (2), 1993
[IEM93002]
Amaryllis, 1991
[IEM91001]
Amaryllis, 1993
[IEM93005]
Amaryllis (12), 1993
[IEM93006]
Amaryllis (19), 1993
[IEM93008]
Amaryllis (21), 1993
[IEM93010]
Amaryllis, 1993
[IEM93014]
Amaryllis (1), 1993
[IEM93001]
Amaryllis (4), 1993
[IEM93003]
Amaryllis (5), 1993
[IEM93004]
Amaryllis (14), 1993
[IEM93029]
Amaryllis (17), 1993
[IEM93007]
Amaryllis (20), 1993
[IEM93009]
Amaryllis, 1993
[IEM93013]
Amaryllis (LD1), 1993
[IEM93018]
Amaryllis (P1), 1993
[IEM93024]
Amaryllis (P5), 1993
[IEM93025]
Amaryllis (22), 1993
[IEM93011]
Amaryllis (23), 1993
[IEM93012]
Amaryllis (LD2), 1993
[IEM93019]
Amaryllis (LD4), 1993
[IEM93021]
Amaryllis (P8), 1993
[IEM93027]
Amaryllis, 1993
[IEM93028]
Amaryllis (L4), 1993
[IEM93016]
Contemporary Obsessions
Contemporary Obsessions revolves around passionate,
myopic investigation of things. The exhibition brings together
a number of very different artists, whose works all with great
intensity delve into different subjects and materials in search
of unique connections and systems. Everywhere things are
scrutinized, as artists unleash their minds into their material,
repurposing it into new sequences revealing unknown or
overlooked interrelationships.
In so many ways, looking at things with a detailobsessed or
whimsical eye, discovering patterns in a field of objects and
wringing new meaning from them, is intrinsic to artmaking.
It is both a contemporary fascination and a perennial condi
tion of art. There have always been artists who were obsessed
with painting a specific mountain or capturing shimmering
foliage, exploring the nuances of skin or the abstract three
dimensional volumes of drapery. The variety of ways in which
a sharpeyed, painstaking or manic approach to the material
is expressed in today’s art is the starting point for this exhibi
tion. It does not aspire to present a comprehensive overview
of all these disparate strategies. It is simply an invitation to
be carried away by the vortices and unique universes that
emerge when artists delve into a subject with a particular
overheated intensity.
Under the name Simon Evans™, Simon Evans and his
partner, Sarah Lannan, make detailed collages, often pieced
together from scraps of paper collected as they go about the
business of daily life – bus tickets, business cards, packaging,
napkins, etc. Generally covered in cutout or handwritten words,
the scraps are glued, taped or stitched together into maps of
sorts of the artists’ everyday lives and thoughts. From Every-
thing I Have (2008), Symptoms of Loneliness (2009) and How
to Get Lost (2012) to the works in this exhibition, Archive of
slogans #3 (2018), How to Date Your Mum / How to Bury
Your Dad (2019) and Relic (2019), their works take the form of
diagrams, maps, lists, surveys, vision boards or inventories of
various subjects. Drawings, sentences and cutout elements
are presented with an impressive wealth of detail or in over
whelming amounts, implying that the subjectindices are some
how complete or meaningful. As quickly becomes apparent,
however, absurd categorizations and nonsense are mixed in
with concrete poetry and statements of heartrending beauty.
In Archive of slogans #3, short, sardonic statements written on
different cards say things like, “I vote yes for objective reality,
I’ve noticed all the words are fake, Democracy is under attack
quick get the chocolate icecream” or “What I do is trivial but
if I didn’t I’d do less.” In Divine Comedy, the full text of Dante’s
work is written on index cards – some by hand, others using
cutout letters. However, only the cards at each end of the hor
izontal stack are visible. The rest are neatly stacked, hiding
the enormous labour of writing. The accumulation itself, rather
than the indexed content, is the point of the work.
Despite the meticulous mapping – or, more accurately, because
of it – the works never provide a comprehensive overview of
a field. They are more like myopic, idiosyncratic inventories,
where the overview is lost in the subelements. Bits and piec
es of real life turn into labyrinthine narratives, where the view
er is lost in the ocean of information and winds up in patiently
elaborated blind alleys.
a tomb (2017) is a shoebox diorama of Evans’s childhood
room, replete with bookshelves, dartboard, record player,
bulletin board and pencil holder. The impetus for the work
was Evans’s parents’ sudden decision to divorce after many
years of marriage. Thinking back on his childhood, he recalled
how his mother once helped him build an Egyptian tomb in a
shoebox. Based both on a very personal circumstance and
a general interest in ancient Egypt, the work connects to a
fascination with miniature universes and the notion of survey
ing the big world in a small model.
The two artists’ ability to collaborate on work that has such
an individual, and personal starting point is testimony to their
close working relationship. Their handwriting is almost identi
cal. As their gallerist James Cohan puts it, “My understanding
is they operate as one being.” The viewer’s experience of
journeying into an artist’s singular and unparalleled trains of
thoughts and associations is made even more marvellous
by being the product of an exchange between two minds.
Most of Simon Evans™’s works are textbased. Indeed,
Evans was going to become a writer when he found that the
words were increasingly demanding their own physical space,
separate from the meaning they conveyed. Lannan, for her
part, started out in graphic design. Coming at it from different
angles, they both zeroed in on the visual and material sides of
writing as no less important to the overall meaning than that
of content. The words in their works are generally written on
separate scraps of paper, whose various tints and textures
come together into a shimmering, vibrant whole. The scraps
are often a bit crumpled and worn after passing through the
artists’ hands. Closely connecting to lifeaslived, this also
enhances the impression of fragility that permeates their works,
materially and psychologically. Moreover, it testifies to the
painstaking process of finding the justright snippet of text
and piece of paper to write it on.
The overinvolved absorption in detail counteracts the works’
structure, which strives for comprehensiveness and clarity.
As Evans puts it, “Categorizing is what humans do, and obses
sion is what is involved in anything you’re passionate about.
I like the typical repetition of rituals, of punishment and wor
ship, jogging laps, or doing yantras. It’s a beautiful cartoon of
futile human acts. When working, I prefer to riff in a picture,
so I don’t have to wear myself out with drastic choices, or be
scared to be brave.”1 His strategy is to stick with small, stub
bornly repeated elements and gestures, incrementally homing
in on meaning, rather than launching into overarching state
ments with grand gestures. Hence Lannan’s statement:
“People surprise me when they comment on the obsessive
qualities of the work… I can only add that it doesn’t feel
obsessive.” For the outside viewer, however, the air of obses
sion is pronounced. For one, there is the simple necessity of
getting our noses as close to the works as the artists’ were in
order to read the numerous small texts. There, we clearly feel
the pull of the artwork’s associative vortex.
Like Simon Evans™, René Schmidt uses existing images –
in his case, scientific ones – removed from their contexts in
order to create an independent wildly growing world of forms.
Likewise starting from close study, Schmidt zooms way in on
the constituent parts of his material. His large sculptures in
this exhibition are based on scientific photographs of diatoms
taken through a microscope revealing their staggeringly beauti
ful and complex structures. Diatoms are unicellular microal
gae, whose cell walls are made up of silica forming intricate,
decorative patterns. Via photosynthesis, these humble, nano
sized organisms are responsible for creating 20 percent of all
oxygen on Earth, and so Schmidt is dealing with structures
that are vital to the makeup and wellbeing of the entire plan
et. Inspired by the patterns of diatoms, the sculptures are
modelled as geometric forms in a 3D program and 3Dprinted
or cast in moulds. Some of the surfaces are then treated with
foam, paint and glue, and, by means of static electricity, flocked
with thin nylon fibres resembling cilia or brushes. Sweeping
areas of the resulting sculptures are covered in millions of
separate parts in geometric fractal patterns mixing with more
random organic structuring principles.
For years, Schmidt has been interested in how nature and
architecture organize matter. Since Functionalism, modern
architecture has been marked by strict simplicity, building on
the basic element of the cube. Modern construction is largely
based on standard modules to answer engineering require
ments for lowcost production, industrial practice and safety.
Although it is possible today to produce complex units that
fit together with millimetre precision, the goal most often is a
simple exterior. The complexity of piping, wiring, drainage,
insulation and other functional elements is hidden away behind
slick surfaces. Construction principles in both nature and
architecture are based on mathematical, functional principles.
However, as Schmidt sees it, in modern architecture these
principles, have stagnated into monolithic, flawless forms,
whereas nature’s algorithms are constantly mutating and
evolving. The artist seeks to incorporate this neverending,
living movement and complexity into his sculptures by accom
modating accident and the unexpected, and by cultivating
random fluctuations that bring shifts and variation to the form.
Schmidt’s large objects are experienced as overwhelming
and so full of minute, detailed formations that the gaze strug
gles to make sense of what it is seeing. His works require
longtime scrutiny. Spiralling geometric shapes lead us into
the form while we wrestle with the unruliness of the material.
The artist is a student of Gothic architecture, which, unlike
Functionalism, is made up of countless tiny elements coming
together into an organic, ornamented whole. Gothic Shelter
– an architectural sculpture at Skovsnogen, Deep Forest
Artland, with unique,
individually shaped
rawconcrete pillars
supporting an orna
mented, composite
superstructure – is
rhapsodi cally poetic
and Gothi cally gro
tesque at once. René Schmidt, The Gothic Shelter, 2019. Foto Morten Kromann.
While Functionalism has always held integrity above specula
tive ornament, Schmidt demonstrates how basing sculptures
on sober and functional scientific systems can also generate a
complex and decorative wealth of detail. In their vibrant, organic
abstraction, his sculptures can be seen as a critique of mod
ernism’s Functionalist principle and lifeless systemic structure.
Alexandra Leykauf is another artist in this exhibition who
is preoccupied with structure and life. In her video work Eve-
rybody’s Autobiography (2015), she organizes a number of
autobiographical volumes, sequencing their titles into one
long text. The video’s action is simple: a pair of hands open a
book, Gertrud Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography, on a black
tabletop. With the book opened to the title page, the artist
reads the title in an unmistakably German accent. The dry,
factual voiceover goes on, as one autobiography is replaced
by another. The titles run together to form different meanings:
Is That All There Is?, I Believed, There’s No Answer to That!!,
Uneasy Lies the Head, As I Remember, My Own Story, The
Statue Within, World Within World, Stop the World, In My Own
Name, What Am I Doing Here, In the Center of Things… Guid
ed by Leykauf’s voiceover, the individual lives of the writers
link up into a collective story (hence the title), encapsulating
the very idea of an autobiographical narrative. At the same
time, the title pages stake out a visual field for how stories
of self can be presented. All these writers’ lives and worlds,
opening in glimpses before us, pique our curiosity about them
and their work. We muse on what is behind the titles. What
kind of an autobiography is Don’t Laugh at Me? What is Man
Without a Face like? How do you sum up a life? What word
ing would you use to present yourself? As viewers, we can
ponder what title would best fit our lives, while searching for
perceived matrices in the displayed titles. Meticulously organ
izing various writers’ autobiographies, the artist paints a por
trait, both of herself and of the concept of selfrepresentation.
The video ends with Leykauf saying, “Das war es” (That’s it).
This leftover bit of the recording session lends the work a
certain lightness but could also be the title of the artist’s own
autobiography.
The video is accompanied by small models of book sculp
tures, each consisting of a folded sheet with the title page
on the inside and reflective metal foil on the outside, mirroring
and incorporating the viewer’s own face into the work. We
are, in a sense, put on the cover of the autobiography we are
viewing.
Leykauf’s series Faces (2019) also introduces faces into the
actual viewing of the work. Here, she has collected reproduc
tions of landscapes that, in her words, “looked at her”. Paint
ed with photosensitive emulsion, the pictures are covered in
sand, after which everything but “the face” is cleared and
darkened in the development process. In Max L., a window
and a stooping woman each turn into an eye, with a washba
sin making up the mouth. In Henri R., a sculpture on a plinth
forms a nose and mouth. This transformation from “landscape”
to “portrait” involves both abstraction and surreal figuration.
Titling the works after the first names of the original artists,
Leykauf seems to be searching for the painters’ faces behind
the pictures. Appropriating the landscapes by viewing them,
she makes them her own and, in the process, becomes so
intimate with the artists that she is on a firstname basis with
them, “developing” their portraits. These portraits are also
hers, because they originated inside her, through her gaze at
the pictures.
Leykauf is also exhibiting three photographs examining works
by other artists with equal intensity. La Tempesta (Giorgione)
(2016) shows an open book with a picture of the Giorgione
painting. On the book lies a mobile phone displaying a picture
of Leykauf’s clothes draped over the side of a bathtub. Mim
icking a section of drapery in the painting, her clothes become
a yardstick relating the two spaces, that of the painting and
that of the artist’s room, to each other. Merging a number of
different media, spaces and forms of representation, each
with its own distinct viewing situation – the painter viewing the
landscape, the photographer shooting the painting, Leykauf
gazing down at the book, the viewer herself looking at the
work – Leykauf’s work folds several image worlds into one
kaleidoscopic whole.
Matts Leiderstam is another artist who has carefully stud
ied books of Old Master reproductions. In his series After
Image (201012), Leiderstam points out details and con
nections in old paintings, photographing open art books while
using a finger or magnifying glass to indicate relevant areas.
Leiderstam’s approach has several aspects in common with
Leykauf’s. But while Leykauf focuses on the formal qualities
of different media and mutual reflections between image
worlds, Leiderstam generally applies the lens of identity poli
tics. In images from art history, he indicates often overlooked
details, ambiguous undertones and suggested homoerotic
relations: exceptionally coquettish gestures, which he occa
sionally replicates with his own pointing hand, a halfopen fly
in a pair of 18thcentury men’s breeches, phallic plinths, erupting
volcanoes and sensuous details like a cardinal dipping a piece
of bread in his wine glass while smiling and locking eyes with
another cardinal.
Leiderstam’s visual logic and argumentation resemble the
ones David Hockney used in his film The Secret Knowledge
(2002) to highlight details of Old Master paintings suggesting
that painters since the Renaissance have used a camera
obscura or other prephotographic optical technologies to
capture a subject on canvas by tracing projected images. For
one, Hockney points out, a surprising number of models are
lefthanded, which could be explained by an optical device
flipping the image. In the same way that Hockney in his film
trains his detective’s eye on the visual markers of optics, Lei
derstam’s images stoke the viewer’s desire to spot various
expressions, movements and details that the ordinary, nor
mative eye fails to notice or appreciate. We are, in a sense,
pulled in, not only into the books and pictures, but also into
Leiderstam’s persistent pursuit of particular elements. Apply
ing today’s image and gender conventions, his queer eye
often looks with a wink at the Old Masters.
Leiderstam’s interest in art history is differently expressed in
two installations from the series Unknown Unknown (2014).
Both works are based on portraits of models unknown to us,
painted by equally unknown artists. As with Leykauf’s work,
what matters is that the paintings have aroused the artist’s
desire to appropriate the work and learn more about it and
its model. The paintings – bought in antique stores or at auc
tion, or reproduced in both front and rear views – are intense
ly studied to figure out the approximate height of the model.
The paintings are then installed according to that height.
Some are hung perpendicularly to the wall. Others are mount
ed on stands and furnished with extra paintings by Leiderstam
himself to give the portrayed faces a “body” enabling them
to be exhibited in the round. There is a touching tenderness
to the way Leiderstam handles a painting like the one in Un -
known Woman (2014), cleaning and restretching it, building a
body for it and, in general, paying it the same interest he
would a living person. Like the painter of Dorian Gray, he
gives the painting, and its doubly unknown actors, new life
– an identity and a space where it can exist and have signifi
cance. These personages – or “life masks”, as he calls them
– clearly present as both paintings and people in the room.
They clarify the transformation from model to painting and
back again, while displaying the markers of the time in which
they were originally created. They are in the space, as are the
viewers. As Leiderstam puts it, he aims to change our expec
tations of what it means to stand before a painting in a muse
um or gallery.
Mika Rottenberg, like several artists in the exhibition,
tracks down exotic or grotesque elements in existing pic
tures. Trawling the internet’s vast ocean of images, she finds
people who flaunt their unique attributes: an unusually big
body, acrobatic skills, extremely long nails and the like. The
artist situates these characters in outlandish and monstrous
takeoffs of fantasy worlds. Often, she sets up a kind of facto
ry, an absurd production apparatus, employing her charac
ters’ peculiarities to critically lampoon the logic of capitalism.
Assembly lines, tunnels and piping frequently convey the weird
products manufactured across this oddball system.
Rottenberg’s video work Study #4 (Short Variant) (2019) fea
tures no productmanufacturing. Here, characters are “manu
factured”, or summoned, in brief sequences. The video is set
in an odd, red interior, the Greek room of The Pocono Resort in
America. A fireplace blazes, and between fake fluted columns
and a reproduction of a classical painting stands a metres
high cocktail glass with a builtin fountain. The sounds of the
fountain and the crackling fire are interrupted by sudden puffs
of white smoke appearing in the middle of the room, as if from
a magician’s wand or an oldstyle magnesium flash. After
repeated attempts, a number of figures emerge one after
another from the smoke: an obese black woman in a tutu
twirling round and round while rhythmically stomping her feet
on the rug, a female weightlifter moaning as she hoists a bar
bell, then disappearing again, a male bodybuilder flexing his
outrageous, glistening muscles with a squeaky noise, a wom
an sticking out her unusually long tongue and another woman
shaking her unbelievably long hair. The repetitive, overthe
top soundtrack gives the images a cartoony feel. The mood is
dreamlike, theatrical, David Lynchian, at once fascinating,
hilarious and deeply disturbing.
Like Leykauf’s Everybody’s Autobiography, Rottenberg’s work
revolves around selfrepresentation. The characters here are
not represented by autobiographies but by their bodies. One
of Rottenberg’s overarching goals is to create a stage for
women who do not submit to social gender norms and con
ventional expectations of beauty while working within and dis
torting the capitalist system by “selling themselves” online. In
this work, they seem to be dream apparitions in Rottenberg’s
imagination, taking a turn for the bizarre. We sense a pro
found fascination for these characters with their mesmerizing
hair and impressive bodies, real love and support for those
who diligently cultivate and perfect their otherness. At the
same time, we are left with a feeling of detachment from real
ity, of plummeting down a rabbit hole at accelerating speed.
Real places and, especially, real people intermingle in a seduc
tive chain of associations, creating and revealing the beauty,
magic and absurdity of modern existence. The extreme,
spectacular and artificial are foregrounded, while the fascinat
ing, cheap stagecraft enhances the sense of a consumer
society run amok.
In another version of the work the video is seen through a
small crack between a pair of fake, smoky lips on the wall.
To view the video, you have to put your eye against the lips,
heightening the sense of a myopic worldview. Whatever the
version, there is no mistaking that, however weird and won
derful the work’s fiction may be, the world it points to is even
more incredible.
Apart from video works, Rottenberg is presenting a series of
drawings on paper featuring small freefloating signs, like an
alphabet for the world she creates in her videos: noses, cir
cles, tongues, behinds and other symbols. The drawings can
be read as a kind of storyboard, or sheet music, describing a
sequence of events.
The last artist in the show is the late Inge Ellegaard (1953
2010). Obsession appears in her work as stubborn, repeated
contemplation of the same subject. In the early 1990s, Elle
gaard made a series of insistent studies of amaryllises, paint
ing them every day. With dogged persistence, she sat down
every morning to paint her daily amaryllis in its present state
of bloom or decay. The series testifies to an insatiable desire
to explore the motivic possibilities of the flower but also to a
repetitive, almost ritual act. The recurring search for some
thing in the flower became an act of structuring her daily life,
an oasis. Her obsessive concentration on the flower provided
a sense of meaning during a difficult time in her life.
Ellegaard had broken through in the 1980s as one of the
painters known as De Unge Vilde (The Young Savages). At
the time, she succinctly articulated her and her generation’s
postmodern attitude to painting: “The elements of my paint
ings refer to themselves. The pictures are pure language, fol
lowing the syntax of visual language. They are very much
constructed nonsense. Art for me is that I was here. But hav
ing to produce something that is interesting, without meaning
anything by it, is a hard nut to crack. That the pictures hap
pen to resemble normal visual art is my private joke.”2 Con
tent, meaning and subject were less important to her than
visual language itself and the act of being present and
emphatically leaving her mark. In the 1980s, Ellegaard’s sub
jects typically were eclectic, mythological paraphrases, with
titles like Venus and Mars, Diana in Landscape and Moon
Goddess, painted with brutal brushwork in violent colours.
Later on, she often applied repeated motifs like flowers, fox
es, beers and airplanes as detached signs on a simple,
abstract ground.
The Amaryllis series holds no references to mythology or art
historical genre pictures. There is a vanitas symbolism, natu
rally, which is impossible to ignore in pictures of flowers
blooming and withering, but there are no outright paraphras
es of the genres of still life and flower painting. It is about the
sensuous appearance of the individual flower. Each flower is
rendered with intense brushstrokes in almost carnal colours
on paper in whatever state it happened to be in. Meanwhile,
a devilmaycare painterly gesture shakes up the seemingly
genteel and banal subject, adding tremendous presence and
energy to each work. We get an intense sense of the impor
tance of her statement that “Art for me is that I was here.” As
if Ellegaard – who used herself hard and lived the artist’s life –
through painterly enthusiasm about the eternal variation of a
single flower, every morning became present to herself and
prepared herself to face the world.
Ellegaard’s Amaryllis series, like many other works in this
exhibition, shows that visual obsession about a particular
thing can be simultaneously an escape and a desire to delve
deeper into reality – a little bit at a time – as a way of being in
the world, in which details come before the whole.
All the works in this exhibition share a starting point in intimate
observation – at a desk, with paper and scissors, or at a com
puter. But what appears to start out as noodling for the art
ist’s own sake in actuality carries with it a greater perspec
tive. As has often been art’s function, these artists push cer
tain general trends to the point of exaggeration, or create
their own systems and parallel universes. Shedding light on
systemic faults and conventions, they point out alternatives
to entrenched power systems, gender conventions, forms
of reproduction, architecture, etc., though never in the guise
of a manifesto. The critique of the system is not proclamatory
but is kept at a human level. Society’s ostensibly functional
authorities are pushed over the brink and lose it. Simon Evans™’s
trans formations of directions, instructions and maps, render
ing them misleading and bewildering, cause the social com
pact to split at the syntactic seams. Inherent in Schmidt’s work
is a critique of society’s confusion of function and aesthetics.
Functionalist architecture must be cleanable: surfaces must
be easily stripped of graffiti; spikes in the pavement prevent
homeless people from lying down. Moreover, Functionalism
ends up viewing humans as a problem rather than serving the
human function, characterized in part by a joy of expression.
Rottenberg creates mockeries of global living, while Leider
stam and Leykauf shine a particular light on the conventions
of art, wringing alternative information from standard forms of
image reproduction.
Humour and absurd cheer can be sensed as an echo resound
ing through many of the works. Humour goes hand in hand
with obsession, and by means of it many of the works sub
vert the uniforming of social orders.
1 ID Magazine, 16 March 2016.
2 Erik Svendsen and Anne Jerslev, Kunsten er for mig at jeg har været der,
Politisk revy, no. 445, 1983.
Alexandra Leykauf
Meditation by the Sea
(Anonymous) – mirror, 2015
Analogue cprint
61 cm x 79 cm
ALF15001
La Tempesta (Giorgione)
– Dessaur Strasse, 2016
Analogue cprint
153 cm x 124 cm
ALF16001
Laubwald mit dem Heiligen
Georg (Albrecht Altdorfer)
– Dessauer Strasse, 2016
Analogue cprint
46,5 cm x 33,0 cm
ALF16002
Aleksander G., 2019
Photographic emulsion on
offset print
33,5 cm x 25,0 cm
ALF19001
August M., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
30,0 cm x 28,5 cm
ALF19002
Carl B., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
31,5 cm x 25,5 cm
ALF19003
Carl B. II, 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
34,5 cm x 29,5 cm
ALF19004
Carl B. IV, 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
37,0 cm x 31,5 cm
ALF19005
Carl B. III, 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
31,0 cm x 27,5 cm
ALF19006
Caspar David F., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
36 cm x 30 cm
ALF19007
Ferdinand H., 2019
Faces
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
37,0 cm x 32,5 cm
ALF19008
Fitz Hugh L., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
34,0 cm x 33,5 cm
ALF19009
Georgia O'K, 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
31 cm x 29 cm
ALF19010
Gijsbrecht L., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
40 cm x 35 cm
ALF19011
Henri R., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
38 cm x 35 cm
ALF19012
Isaak Iljitsch L., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
41,5 cm x 33,5 cm
ALF19013
Lyonel F., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
50,5 cm x 49,5 cm
ALF19014
Max L., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
41,0 cm x 37,5 cm
ALF19015
Paul C., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
34,5 cm x 32,5 cm
ALF19016
Paul K., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
28 cm x 32 cm
ALF19017
Wassily K., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
33 cm x 28 cm
ALF19018
Wilhelm M., 2019
Photographic emulsion
on offset print
31 cm x 31 cm
ALF19019
Everybody's Autobiography,
2019
11 folded sheets of
mirror polished steel.
Each 25 cm x 35 cm
ALN19001
Everybody's Autobiography,
2015
2' 25' video, sound
ALV15001
Inge Ellegaard
Amaryllis, 1991
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM91001
Amaryllis, 1991
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM91002
Amaryllis (1), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93001
Amaryllis (2), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93002
Amaryllis (4), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93003
Amaryllis (5), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93004
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93005
Amaryllis (12), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93006
Amaryllis (17), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93007
Amaryllis (19), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93008
Amaryllis (20), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93009
Amaryllis (21), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93010
Amaryllis (22), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93011
Amaryllis (23), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93012
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93013
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93014
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93015
Amaryllis (L4), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93016
Amaryllis (L6), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93017
Amaryllis (LD1), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93018
Amaryllis (LD2), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93019
Amaryllis (LD3), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93020
Amaryllis (LD4), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93021
Amaryllis (LK1), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93022
Contemporary Obsessions
Alexandra Leykauf / Inge Ellegaard / Matts Leiderstam
Mika Rottenberg / René Schmidt / Simon Evans™
8 November – 20 December 2019
Works / Værker
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93023
Amaryllis (P1), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93024
Amaryllis (P5), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93025
Amaryllis (P7), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93026
Amaryllis (P8), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93027
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93028
Amaryllis (14), 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93029
Amaryllis, 1993
Acrylic on paper
74 cm x 99,5 cm
IEM93030
Matts Leiderstam
After Image (Under Niagara,
1862), 2010
Cprint. Ed. 10
42 cm x 64 cm
MAT10001
After Image (Estasi di Santa
Teresa), 2010
Cprint. Ed. 10
63,5 cm x 47 cm
MAT10002
After Image (Pair of Portrait
Groups of Members of the
Society of Dilettanti), 2010
Cprint. Ed. 10
43,5 cm x 57,5 cm
MAT10003
After Image (Portrait of a
Gentleman), 2010
Cprint. Ed. 10
46,5 cm x 58 cm
MAT10004
After Image (The Grand Canal
between Palazzo Bembo and
Ca' Vendramin Calergi), 2010
Cprint. Ed. 10
46,5 cm x 63,5 cm
MAT10005
After Image (Johann Joachim
Winckelmann), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
44 cm x 61 cm
MAT11001
After Image (The Cardinals'
Friendly Chat), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
46,5 cm x 61,5 cm
MAT11002
After Image (Het gebed van
Tobias en Sara & Raphael bindt
de duivel), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
48 cm x 66 cm
MAT11003
After Image (Charles Townley
med vänner i sitt bibliotek vid
Park Street, Westminster, 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
47,5 cm x 63,5 cm
MAT11004
After Image (L'Eruption du
Vésuve), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
39,5 cm x 53 cm
MAT11005
After Image (Portrait of Jakob
Philipp Hackert), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
42,5 cm x 58,5 cm
MAT11006
After Image (Bei Blair Atholl,
Schottland/Near Blair Athol,
Scotland), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
49,5 cm x 71 cm
MAT11007
After Image (Coast Scene with
Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl
& Landscape with Mercury and
Battus), 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
45,5 cm x 65 cm
MAT11008
After Image (Kunstzerstörer, 2011
Cprint. Ed. 10
53 cm x 72 cm
MAT11009
After Image (Piazza del Popolo
before 1751), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
49,5 cm x 66,5 cm
MAT12001
After Image (The 8th Duke of
Hamilton with Dr John Moore
and Ensign Moore), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
44,5 cm x 59,5 cm
MAT12002
After Image (The Life Class
of the Vienna Academy in the
St Anne Building), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
42,5 cm x 60,5 cm
MAT12003
After Image (The Mother of
Captain von StierleHolzmeister
& Captain von
StierleHolzmeister), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
44 cm x 66 cm
MAT12004
After Image (Castle Huntly,
Perthshire), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
46 cm x 64 cm
MAT12005
After Image (The Dead Christ
and the Three Maries), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
42 cm x 63,5 cm
MAT12006
After Image (Eugen von
Guérard), 2012
Cprint. Ed. 10
40 cm x 63 cm
MAT12007
Unknown Woman, 2014
Oak wood structure, 3 paint
ings oil on linen, 1 painting
acrylic on MDF
173 cm x 47 cm x 40 cm
MAT14001
SKA3035 (Unknown
Unknown), 2014
Pigment prints on Hahnemühle
Photo Rag Satin Paper, text
mounted on cardboard
102,0 cm x 80,0 cm x 4,5 cm
MAT14002
Mika Rottenberg
Study #4 (Short Variant), 2019
Singlechannel video installa
tion, sound,color, dimensions
variable; 2:56 min
MRV19001
m21, 2011
Graphite, acrylic, color pencil
on paper
31,0 cm x 38,5 cm
MRZ11001
m36, 2011
Graphite, acrylic, color pencil
on paper
31,0 cm x 38,5 cm
MRZ11002
m41, 2011
Graphite, acrylic, color pencil
on paper
31,0 cm x 38,5 cm
MRZ11003
m49, 2011
Graphite, acrylic, color pencil
on paper
31,0 cm x 41,5 cm
MRZ11004
m53, 2011
Graphite, acrylic, color pencil
on paper
31 cm x 39 cm
MRZ11005
René Schmidt
AsA (Diatom/ Stephanodiscus
astraea, 2019
PETg polymer, acrylic plaster,
acrylic car paints
155 cm x 77 cm x 77 cm
RES19001
OrO (Diatom/ Orthoseira),
2019
Cardboard, PU foam, PVAc
glue, nylon flock fibres, acrylic
paints
242 cm x 79 cm x 79 cm
RES19002
ASEX (asexual reproduction,
binary fission), 2019
Lightweight expanded clay
aggregate (LECA), white
cement, quartz sand, alkali
resistant iron oxide pigments
123 cm x 70 cm x 70 cm
RES19003
Gii (Diatom/ Thalassiosira
weissflogii), 2019
Lightweight expanded clay
aggregate (LECA), white
cement, quartz sand, alkali
resistant iron oxide pigments
90 cm x 65 cm x 65 cm
RES19004
EIE (Diatom/ Ellerbeckia
arenaria, 2019
Lightweight expanded clay
aggregate (LECA), white
cement, quartz sand, alkali
resistant iron oxide pigments
50 cm x 43 cm x 43 cm
RES19005
Simon Evans™
Rhyming Opportunities, 2011
Handwowen paper
127,5 cm x 86,5 cm
SECOL11001
Wallpaper, 2015
Pen, paper and tape on
parchment paper
435 cm x 91 cm
SECOL15001
Divine Comedy, 2016
Stack of 3x5 index cards,
2247
12,7 cm x 7,6 cm x 71 cm
SECOL16001
a tomb, 2017
Mixed media
11,1 cm x 33,2 cm x 20,6 cm
SECOL17001
Archive of slogans #3 (for Jac
Leirner), 2018
Mixed media on 50 business
cards
84,5 cm x 110,0 cm
SECOL18001
Relic, 2019
Mixed media
133 cm x 105 cm
SECOL19001
Portrait of the Artist as a
Capitalist Goat, 2019
Mixed media
54,5 cm x 100,5 cm
SECOL19002
How to Date Your Mum / How
to Bury Your Dad, 2019
Mixed media
54,5 cm x 70,5 cm
SECOL19003
Savings, 2019
Mixed media
62,0 cm x 63 cm
SECOL19004
FLÆSKETORVET 85 A
DK–1711 KØBENHAVN V
TEL +45 33 93 42 21
BJERGGAARD@BJERGGAARD.COM
TUESDAY-FRIDAY 1 PM–6 PM
SATURDAY 12 PM–4 PM
WWW.BJERGGAARD.COM
© The artists & Galleri Bo Bjerggaard
Alexandra Leykauf / Inge Ellegaard / Matts Leiderstam
Mika Rottenberg / René Schmidt / Simon Evans™
Translation Danish to English: Glen Garner
ISBN 9788793134423
Thanks to Helle Brøns, the artists, Martin van Zomeren Galerie,
KM Galerie, Jens Henrik Sandberg, AndréhnSchiptjenko,
Wilfried Lentz, Hauser & Wirth, James Cohan and Rosendahls
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