|
Johannes Heldén, Natural History [Naturhistoria], 2007. Courtesy of the artist. |
|
Working the Multi-Dimensionality Beat with Expressions of Time |
Joachim Koester, The Room of Nightmares [Mardrömskammaren], 2005. Courtesy of the artist and Galleri Nicolai Wallner.
Robert Kusmirowski, The Crypt [Kryptan], 2007. Courtesy of the artist and Johnen Galerie.
Melvin Moti, The Black Room [Det svarta rummet], 2005. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Claude Cahun. |
Bonniers Konsthall Against Time gathers 20 artists and authors who, from different perspectives and using different methods, work with time, history and storytelling. Common to them all is a fascination to recreate the past; a past that is reinterpreted, re-used and given new meanings through creative rewritings and new writings. The exhibition questions the methods of storytelling: how is continuity created, how is it broken down, are there other ways of telling? But it is also concerned with the way we create history through our narratives and with the function that the image and the reconstruction of the past performs in the present. A main theme in the exhibition is an interest for literature’s forms of narration and its function in contemporary visual art. The exhibition is devised as a crossover between visual art and literature in which several of those contributing to the exhibition also work as fictional authors. An important element in the exhibition is the comprehensive anthology Anachronisms in which the artists and authors participate. Their respective roles overlap in some cases in the same way that their contributions shift between text and image. Many works in the exhibition have a mobile, prismatic and spatial narrative where various media interact with the viewer’s presence and movements, so as to dismantle an unambiguous perspective. We might perhaps simplify this and speak of an expanded literature that takes place in space, in the same sense as film has expanded into the film installation. Several of the artists in the exhibition employ old-fashioned, time-consuming techniques; they find in the worn-out and the redundant a possibility for expressing time and the past. Others build tales on personal memories, collective historic events or imagined stories. Time and chronology are moved or shifted, the border between reality and fiction is torn down. Against Time is an exhibition where time is an expressed dimension. It takes time to experience, and hopefully will get the visitor to return and re-experience certain works or the entire exhibition. The architecture devised for the exhibition is made by Klas Ruin from the Swedish architectural firm SPRIDD emphasises this by leaving a space for reading to occupy the heart of a labyrinthine series of rooms. It underscores the artists’ play with time and history, and counteracts the Konsthalle’s transparency and clarity by using textiles to create darkness. A wide-ranging programme of readings, performances, discussions and lectures will be given during the course of the exhibition. Several of the contributing artists have produced new work especially for the exhibition. Contributors: Ulla von Brandenburg (Germany), Gerard Byrne (Ireland), Marcel van Eeden (The Netherlands), Annika von Hausswolff (Sweden), Johannes Heldén (Sweden), Leif Holmstrand (Sweden), Martin Karlsson (Sweden), Fabian Kastner (Sweden), Joachim Koester (Denmark), Robert Kusmirowski (Poland), Lotta Lotass (Sweden), Jan Mancuska (Czech Republic), Melvin Moti (The Netherlands), Gerald Murnane (Australia), Lina Selander (Sweden), Marie Silkeberg (Sweden), Johan Thurfjell (Sweden), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Per Wizén (Sweden) and Ulrika Minami Wärmling (Sweden). Curator for the exhibition is director of Bonniers Konsthall, Sara Arrhenius. |
Lina Selander, Timmarna som rymmer formen (ett par dagar i Portbou) [The Hours That Hold the Form (A Couple of Days in Portbou)], 2007. Courtesy of the artist. |
