PRESS KIT 2017
CONTENT 4 4 5 6 7 7 8 9 9 9 9 10 10 11 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 FULL CHART SCHEDULE FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER CHART ART FAIR 2017 THE FULL LIST OF EXHIBITING GALLERIES FOR 2017 CHART ART FAIR FILM CHART DESIGN GOLDIN&SENNEBY - ACID MONEY Magic demonstration(2017) LILLIAN TØRLEN - Resonance (2014/2017) HANNE G - The Duet CHART DESIGN talk: Ambiguity as a Resource for Design SPECIAL PROJECT by NINA LOLLE CHART SOCIAL CHART EMERGING - I AM OUR COMMON PRONOUN NANNA ABELL SIGURÐUR ÁMUNDASON JOSEFIN JUSSI ANDERSSON ZOE BARCZA MIRA EKLUND ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ YASSINE KHALED EIRIK SÆTHER HELENE NYMANN VIDHA SAUMYA AMALIE SMITH 24 24 24 24 25 25 25 CHART TALKS PROGRAMME DOES PROFESSIONAL ART CRITICISM LEAD TO BETTER ART? THE VIEWER IS PRESENT AMBIGUITY AS A RESOURCE FOR DESIGN (CHART DESIGN) IS RADICAL CHANGE POSSIBLE IN TODAY S CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD? THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR: CAN ART BE ANTI-SOCIAL? IS THERE NO EXPERIENCE EXCEPT MEDIATED EXPERIENCE? 26 26 26 26 27 27 CHART ARCHITECTURE 01 ADAPT X ABSOLUT 02 ALGAE DOME X SPACE10 03 STICK BOX X THE UNION KITCHEN 04 SUNDAY TEMPLE X GORILLA 05 PAPER PAVILION X MUSLING BISTRO 2 / 40
CONTENT 28 29 29 29 29 COURTYARD PROGRAMME FULL COURTYARD PROGRAMME KATHARINA GROSSE AND STEFAN SCHNEIDER - LIVE PERFORMANCE (2017) MERIKE ESTNA - Red Herring (2017) PILVI TAKALA - Drive with care (2013) LORENZO SENNI (b. 1983) - 10 MINUTE RAVE(2017) 30 30 31 31 31 31 32 32 32 33 33 33 34 34 34 SPECIAL ART PROJECTS: EX SITU. SAMPLES OF LIFEFORMS. A KASSEN - Ponds (spilling), 2017 MARTIN ERIK ANDERSEN Nut, the Nightsky and the Astrapool (the Obelisk, the Obelisk), 2015 ALAN BOGANA Crystal Fire, 2015 RONI HORN Untitled #1, 1998 LAUREN HURET Deep Blue Dream III (swamp version), 2016 DOMINIQUE KOCH Perpetual Operator, 2016 KEITH TYSON Nature Painting (Planet), 2008, Nature Painting (Ulam s Spiral), 2008 LENA MARIA THÜRING Hanjin Palermo, 2015 HANNAH WEINBERGER As If I Became Upside Down, Right Side Up (humming stones), 2013 HANNAH WEINBERGER On Air, 2017 PEDRO WIRZ We Know What We Learn, 2017 TACITA DEAN Quatemary, 2014 35 CHART X KGL TEATER CORPUS: Fall by Martin Forsberg & Christian Falsnaes 35 35 35 36 36 36 36 36 36 CHART X HAY LAURE PROUVOST ANNA REIVILÄ GEOFF MCFETRIDGE MALIN GABRIELLA NORDIN RICHARD COLMAN JOHN KØRNER ANNA BJERGER CHARLIE ROBERTS 37 LAURE PROUVOST LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN 38 MARTIN CREED X MADS NØRGAARD 39 CHART ART FAIR PRESS CONTACT CHART ART FAIR CHART DESIGN CHART EMERGING CHART TALKS CHART ARCHITECTURE CHART COURTYARD CHART SPECIAL ART PROJECTS 3 / 40
FULL CHART SCHEDULE 1-3 SEPTEMBER FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 11:00-21:00 16:00 16:00 16:00 16:00 16:00-20:00 16:00 16:00 16:30 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:15 19:00 19:00 19:00 19:30 20:15 20:45 21:45 22:30 23:30 24:00 01:00 Opening hourse: EX SITU. SAMPLES OF LIFEFORMS, at Copenhagen Contemporary CHART ART FAIR: Vernissage, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg CHART DESIGN: Vernissage,various locations CHART X HAY: HAY CHART Poster shop, opening, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg CHART EMERGING: I AM OUR COMMON PRONOUN, Vernissage, Charlottenborg, at Festsalen CHART EMERGING: Josefine Jussi Andersson, A nasty surprise, Live performance, at Billedhuggerskolen CHART EMERGING: Yassine Khaled, Monitor man, Live performance, no fixed location COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Pilvi Takala,Drive with care (2013), Courtyard 2 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: LORENZO SENNI, LIVE (IT), Basement CHART DESIGN: GOLDIN+SENNEBY, ACID MONEY, Magic demonstration, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Cinema COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Martin Creed, Live (UK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME:Charlie Roberts, DJ (US), Courtyard 1 CHART ART FAIR FILM: Marine abramovic, The Current (2017) Galleri Brandstrup, Premier, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg Cinema COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Alex Da Corte, DJ (US), Courtyard 1 & 2 CHART EMERGING: Yassine Khaled, Monitor man, Live Performance, no fixed location CHART ART FAIR FILM: Including Alex Da Corte, Maria Friberg, Nug, Sigurdur Gudjónsson, Steina, Tuomas A. Laitinen & Tuomás Saraceno, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg Cinema COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Astrid Sonne, Live (DK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Elias Bender Rønnenfelt DJ (DK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Collider, Live (DK), Courtyard 2 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Liss, DJ (DK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Goss Live (DK), Courtyard 2 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: 18A (CODE WALK + SMERZ), DJ (NO / DK), Courtyard 2 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Fredo, live (UK), Courtyard 2 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Trevor jackson VS. KAsper Bjørke, DJ (UK / DK), Courtyard 2 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Soleima, Live (DK), Courtyard 2 4 / 40
SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 11:00-21:00 12:00-18:00 12:00-18:00 12:00-18:00 12:00 12:00 12:30 13:30 14:00 14:00 14:30 15:30 16:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 18:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 Opening hours: EX SITU. SAMPLES OF LIFEFORMS, at Copenhagen Contemporary Opening hours: CHART ART FAIR: at Kunsthal Charlottenborg Opening hours: CHART X HAY: HAY CHART Poster shop, opening, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg Opening hours: CHART EMERGING: I AM OUR COMMON PRONOUN, Charlottenborg, at Festsalen CHART EMERGING: Josefine Jussi Andersson, A nasty surprise, Live performance, at Billedhuggerskolen COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Pilvi Takala, Driv with Care (2013), Courtyard 2 CHART TALKS: Does professional art Criticism lead to better art? Programmed by ArtReview & Moderated by Oliver Basciano, at Kuppelsalen CHART EMERGING: Yassine Khaled, Monitor Man, LIive performance, no fixed location COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Small White Man, Live performance (DK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Lorenzo senni, Live (IT), Basement CHART TALKS: The viewer is present, Programmed by ArtReview & Moderated by Louise Darblay, at Kuppelsalen COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Francesco Pedraglio, Scripting, (A BATTLE IN 3 ACTS OR 3 BATTLES AS ONE SCORE), Live performance (IT), at Den italienske trappe CHART EMERGING: Yassine Khaled, Monitor Man, LIive performance, no fixed location COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Katharina Grosse & Stefan Schneider, Live performance (DE), at Kuppelsalen CHART DESIGN TALK: Ambiguity as a resource for design, Programmed by CHART DESIGN & Moderated by Peter Lang, at Designmuseum Denmark COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Lorenzo Senni, Live (IT), Basement COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Khalil (POSH ISOLATION), Live (DK), Courtyard 1 CHART EMERGING: Josefin Jussi Andersson, A nasty surprise, Live performance, at Billedhuggerskolen COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Christian D or, DJ (RO), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Irrelevant Bitch 101, Live (DK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Ellis May, Live (DK), Courtyard 1 COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Summers, Live (DK), Courtyard 1 5 / 40
SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 11:00-21:00 12:00-18:00 12:00-18:00 12:00-18:00 12:00-18:00 12:00 10:30 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:00 14:30 16:00 16:00 18:15 Opening hours: EX SITU. SAMPLES OF LIFEFORMS, at Copenhagen Contemporary Opening hours: CHART ART FAIR: at Kunsthal Charlottenborg Opening hours: CHART X HAY: HAY CHART Poster shop, opening, at Kunsthal Charlottenborg Opening hours: CHART EMERGING: I AM OUR COMMON PRONOUN, Charlottenborg, at Festsalen CHART EMERGING: Josefine Jussi Andersson, A nasty surprise, Live performance, at Billedhuggerskolen COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Pilvi Takala, Driv with Care (2013), Courtyard 2 CHART TALK: Is radival change possible in today s contemporary art world? Programmed by ArtReview & Moderated by Mark Rappolt, at Kuppelsalen CHART TALKS: The death of the author: Can art be anti-social? Programmed by ArtReview & Moderated by Oliver Basciano, at Kuppelsalen COURTYARD PROGRAMME: Merike Estna, Red herring, Live Performance, Courtyard 2 CHART EMERGING: Yassine Khaled, Monitor Man, LIive performance, no fixed location CHART EMERGING: Mira Eklund, He s on the phone (copenhagen version) Live performance, den gule gård CHART X KGL TEATER - CORPUS: Fall, at The Royal Danish Theatre CHART DESIGN TALK: IS THERE NO EXPERIENCE EXCEPT MEDIATED EXPERIENCE? Programmed by ArtReview & Moderated by Mark Rappolt, at Kuppelsalen CHART X KGL TEATER - CORPUS: FALL, at The Royal Danish Theatre CHART EMERGING: Yassine Khaled, Monitor Man, LIive performance, no fixed location CHART X KGL TEATER - CORPUS: FALL, at The Royal Danish Theatre 6 / 40
CHART ART FAIR 2017 CHART ART FAIR is the leading Nordic contemporary art fair building on the Nordic tradition of collaboration and presenting the invited galleries in unison within the historic halls of Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. The selection and curation is realised by the five founding galleries based in Copenhagen: Galleri Susanne Ottesen, Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, V1 Gallery, Andersen s and David Risley Gallery. Since its inception, CHART has established itself as the international platform for contemporary art in the region. Representing 33 of the leading contemporary art galleries from the Nordic region, CHART ART FAIR returns to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen for its 5th edition from 1-3 September 2017. This year CHART introduces five galleries that are participating for the first time: BERG Contemporary (Iceland); Erik Nordenhake (Sweden); Gether Contemporary (Denmark); Rod Bianco (Norway); and Gallery Steinsland Berliner (Sweden). THE FULL LIST OF EXHIBITING GALLERIES FOR 2017 ANDERSEN'S (Denmark) GALLERI ANDERSSON/SANDSTRÖM (Sweden) ANDRÉHN-SCHIPTJENKO (Sweden) GALERIE ANHAVA (Finland) ANNAELLEGALLERY (Sweden) BERG CONTEMPORARY (Iceland) GALLERI BO BJERGGAARD (Denmark) GALLERI BRANDSTRUP (Norway) CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (Denmark) CROY NIELSEN (Austria) DAVID RISLEY GALLERY (Denmark) EDITION COPENHAGEN (Denmark) ELASTIC GALLERY (Sweden) ERIK NORDENHAKE (Sweden) GALERIE FORSBLOM (Finland/Sweden) GETHER CONTEMPORARY (Denmark) HELSINKI CONTEMPORARY (Finland) HVERFISGALLERÍ (Iceland) I8 GALLERY (Iceland) GALLERI MAGNUS KARLSSON (Sweden) MARTIN ASBÆK GALLERY (Denmark) GALLERI NICOLAI WALLNER (Denmark) NIELS BORCH JENSEN GALLERY & EDITIONS (Denmark/Germany) NILS STÆRK (Denmark) OSL CONTEMPORARY (Norway) PEDER LUND (Norway) GALLERI RIIS (Norway) ROD BIANCO (Norway) SPECTA (Denmark) GALLERY STEINSLAND BERLINER (Sweden) GALLERI SUSANNE OTTESEN (Denmark) GALLERY TAIK PERSONS (Germany) V1 GALLERY (Denmark) 7 / 40
CHART ART FAIR FILM CHART is pleased to introduce CHART ART FAIR FILM as a new section of the fair. The film programme offers a series of scheduled screenings that will be presented in the new and specially designed cinema in Kunsthal Charlottenborg. CHART ART FAIR FILM will extend beyond the dates of the fair and will be included as part of Kunsthal Charlottenborg s programme. The programme will present films by CHART gallery artists including a premier of Marina Abramović s The Current (2017) (Galleri Brandstrup), Alex Da Corte s TRUE LIFE (2013) (David Risley Gallery), Maria Friberg s Matador (2015) (Galleri Andersson/Sandström), NUG s Territorial Pissing (Gallery Steinsland Berliner), Tuomas A. Laitinen s The Powder of Sympathy (2015) (Helsinki Contemporary), Sigurður Guðjónsson s Distance (2012) (BERG Contemporary), Steina s Distant Activities (1972) (BERG Contemporary) and Tomas Saraceno s CLOUD / TIME (2016) (Andersen s). ADDRESS CHART ART FAIR 1-3 September 2017 Kunsthal Charlottenborg Kongens Nytorv 1 1051 Copenhagen K Denmark OPENING HOURS FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER, 16:00-20:00 SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER, 12:00-18:00 SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER, 12:00-18:00 ADMISSION ADULTS - DKK 105 STUDENTS WITH VALID STUDENT ID - DKK 55 STUDENTS OF KADK & BKS - FREE SENIORS - DKK 55 CHILDREN (0-16 YEARS) - FREE 8 / 40
CHART DESIGN Launched in 2016, CHART DESIGN will this year present a curated programme entitled WHAT IT IS, WHEN IT IS NOT. The programme, with Nanna Balslev Strøjer as new Director of CHART DESIGN, consists of a series of talks, performative lectures and projects in public spaces, focusing on the discipline of design and its ambiguous nature. WHAT IT IS, WHEN IT IS NOT will serve as a prelude to the expansion of CHART DESIGN in 2018, where the fair will be re-launched outside of Kunsthal Charlottenborg walls. CHART DESIGN is supported by the National Bank s Jubilee Foundation, Norwegian Crafts and the Nordic Council of Ministers. GOLDIN & SENNEBY - ACID MONEY MAGIC DEMONSTRATION (2017) DATE: FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER, 16:30 LOCATION: CINEMA, KUNSTHAL CHARLOTTENBORG The Swedish performance duo, Goldin+Senneby, provides the framework for cooperation whereby artists Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby explore legal, financial and spatial constructs through performative and virtual means. For their performance ACID MONEY, Goldin+Senneby invites visitors to a performative lecture developed together with the magician, Malin Nilsson, and sociologist, Théo Bourgeon. Examine the story of conspiracy of magic, the audience is invited on a magical journey that stretches from the Cold War brainwashing purification techniques to revelations of modern financial magic. LILLIAN TØRLEN - RESONANCE (2014/2017) DATE:1 SEPTEMBER - 30 SEPTEMBER LOCATION: COPENHAGEN CONTEMPORARY COPENHAGEN CONTEMPORARY ON TRANGRAVSVEJ 10-12, NORDATLANTENS BRYGGE ON STRANDGADE 91 (CHRISTIANSHAVN), A BALCONY OF THE NAVIGATORERNES HUS ON HAVNEGADE 55, THE BRIDGE, INDERHAVNSBROEN, LAMP POST ON HAVNEPROMENADE, THE BRIDGE NYHAVNSBROEN AND THE PASSOIR AT THE CORNER, THE BOAT AND THEATER CAFÉ LIVA ON NYHAVN 26, LAMP POSTS BY NYHAVN, KUNSTHAL CHARLOTTENBORG ON NYHAVN Norwegian ceramic artist Lillian Tørlen s practice deals with individuals perception of and relationship with their surroundings. Through sculpture and installation, Tørlen invites viewers to evaluate space and the form and function of materials. Her site-specific project, Resonance, is an extensive installation consisting of hundreds of porcelain handkerchiefs that have been spread by the wind and stuck between brick walls, street lamps and balconies. In this way, Tørlen activates the project route from Copenhagen Contemporary to Kunsthal Charlottenborg. HANNE G - THE DUET DATE: 1 SEPTEMBER - 3 SEPTEMBER LOCATION: FOYER, KUNSTHAL CHARLOTTENBORG Danish designer Hanne G presents her work The Duet in the foyer of Kunsthal Charlottenborg. The installation explores the sculptural and aesthetic potentials of textile in frozen form combined with a musical composition principle driven by repetitive, random patterns. This interactive, audiovisual installation engages its audience directly. Built-in sensors detect movement and activate an audio element, producing a song that is triggered and shaped by human curiosity, as people approach, move away from and walk around the sculptures. 9 / 40
CHART DESIGN TALK - AMBIGUITY AS A RESOURCE FOR DESIGN DATE: SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER AT 16:30 LOCATION: DESIGNMUSEUM DENMARK International speakers have been invited to discuss the potentials of ambiguity as a conceptual framework for design. Speakers include: Johanna Agerman Ross: Johanna Agerman Ross is the Curator of Twentieth Century and Contemporary Furniture and Product Design at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Before joining the museum she founded and edited the quarterly design journal Disegno and was an editor of the monthly architecture and design magazine Icon. www. agermanross.co.uk Peter Lang: Holding a Bachelor in Architecture and a PhD in Italian history and urbanism, Peter Lang is a preeminent historian and theorist in Italian post-war experimental architecture and Radical design. Currently he teaches at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, where he is running a post-graduate architecture and urban research lab. Lang is currently investigating the future of symbolic monuments and public art in contested urban spaces. www. petertlang.net Marianne Zamecznik: Marianne Zamecznik is a freelance curator and exhibition designer. Since 2015, she has been the director of the art festival Oslo Open. Recent projects include the group exhibition To Bee or Not to Be at Galleri F15 and the performance program Magic Language /// Game of Whispers at Revelations in Paris. Together with Øystein Aasan, she founded ZAMAAS, an exhibition design studio based in Berlin. www.norskkuratorforening. no/marianne-zamecznik/ Lina-Marie Köppen: Lina studied spatial design at the Academy for Fashion & Design (AMD HAMBURG), and did her master s degree in Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Right after graduation she co-founded Hello Randomness, a platform for critical design, as well as LIMAKO, an interdisciplinary design studio. In 2013 she was invited to join the Design Studio at Droog Design in Amsterdam where she works as interdisciplinary designer. Since 2016, she has been working at IKEA of Sweden. www.linamariekoeppen.de SPECIAL PROJECT by NINA LOLLE For the 5th anniversary of the fair, CHART DESIGN has invited the textile designer Nina Lolle to reinterpretate tote bags produced in 2013 for the first edition of CHART. Each bag is made by hand, using a foil printing technique developed specifically for the project. By folding the bag, fixing the foil and finally cutting up the folds, a unique, abstract composition reveals itself on top of the old design. A naive and playful process resulting in a bold and colourful design through which the old print peeks out. 10 / 40
CHART SOCIAL CHART EMERGING - I AM OUR COMMON PRONOUN DATE: FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER, 16:00-20:00, SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER, 12:00-18:00, SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER, 12:00-18:00 LOCATION: FESTSALEN, DEN GULE GÅRD, BILLEDHUGGERSKOLEN, KUNSTHAL CHARLOTTENBORG, KONGENS NYTORV 1, 1051 COPENHAGEN K, DENMARK I AM OUR COMMON PRONOUN takes its title from I Civil (2012), a book by the Danish writer and artist AMALIE SMITH, which considers the body as a porous container of shards that connects and separates us from the world and each other. This exhibition shares Smith s exploration of the self in contemporary life: how it is constituted through language and by extension all modes of representation and how, therefore, it can also be expanded or broken down in an effort to express identification, empathy, love, and belonging. Through the work of eleven emerging artists and collectives living in five Nordic countries, this exhibition traces experiences, experiments, and propositions for imagining the self in contemporary society as something constructed and broken apart by networked culture, migration, increased isolation, and gender fluidity. The exhibition presents works that depart from a rigorous self-examination, in which the body is considered a form akin to others; it may function as a medium, thought of in terms of sculpture and/or performance, as a way to consider what it means to identify with the needs, desires, and suffering of others. Clothing, costumes, and drag, are an external layer that perform gender. By extension, how we live our lives is shaped by architecture and its interiors; Decor, for instance, is akin to how we dress: layers of containers for identity that can be manipulated to affect how we relate to other people and how we constitute our sense of self. Walls, like clothing, affect how we move in the world. In Eirik Sæther s site-specific installation CHINA (2017), the artist flips generic, kitsch, transnational hotel architecture upside down, pointing to this usually invisible structure that collects transient strangers as they move between places and events. The relationship between these external layers and the subject(s) inside them come together and impact how we exist in the world, as in THE NASTY SURPRISE (2017), a performance in three parts by Josephine Jussi Andersson, Klara Ström, and Hannah Wiker Wikström who use their voices and movements to tie together bodies and objects in a performative environment. The ballpoint pen drawings of Vidha Saumya are a means of expanding and reacting to her own desires through identification with the seemingly absurd desires of others. In Artor Jesus Inkerö s Justin (2016), Kim, and Caitlyn (both works commissioned by CHART in 2017), the artist undertakes an extreme lifestyle shift in order to produce images of three infamous public figures from the artist s own body. A stark counterpoint to the common, self-centered project of developing one s own identity or self-branding for display on social media and performed in public life, these artists use identity as a way to look out into the world through a critical lens in search of empathy. On the one hand, YASSINE KHALED s Monitor Man (2016) uses his body and technology to create one-to-one conversations between people he encounters on the streets of Europe and people living in non-western countries, whereas Sigurður Ámundason uses basic materials in his drawings to explore how the stable self might be a complex composition of multiple or split identities. The works may stem from a will to identify with other humans, creatures, or objects and to open up the self and by extension, these ideas in a porous way to produce a consciousness that is anything but individual. In her paintings, Zoe Barcza depicts her body, literally opening it up to her environment. Mira Eklund invokes the voice of her late father as a way to connect to someone through the traces they left behind, and Helene Nymann s video of a ballet dancer interpreting Japanese Butoh dance presents a mode of understanding the self in relation to the tradition and trauma of another time and place. I Am Our Common Pronoun is, therefore, a declaration of collective identification which is as much a proposition for inclusion as it is a threat to the self s (imagined) sovereignty. 11 / 40
This year s edition of CHART EMERGING is curated by Helga Christoffersen; it is the first public component of a three-year long research project on emerging artists in the Nordic countries, initiated by Christoffersen as a response to CHART s invitation to organise CHART EMERGING 2017. Emerging, in this project, refers to artists, who, having completed the formal educational phase of their development, have recently put forth a distinct position within the larger artistic landscape. Emerging therefore does not refer to an age as much as a budding moment of artistic development. I Am Our Common Pronoun was produced through extensive research and travel in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden; it is meant to amplify thematic resonances which emerged between the work of this group of artists. The exhibition, therefore, is not a regional survey, rather, it points to a specific set of concerns. A larger survey of emerging artists in the Nordic countries, which also extends from this research, will follow in book format and as an online resource, forming the next phases of this project. 12 / 40
NANNA ABELL BORN: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (1985) LIVES AND WORKS: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK Chiton (2017) Containers, pipe, swimwear Dimensions variable Tide (2017) Beach chair, t-shirt, epoxy Dimensions variable Squid (2017) Plastic, swimwear Dimensions variable Nanna Abell produces sculptures and wall works by combining and manipulating materials and images in modes akin to digital alteration of pictures of bodies and objects found through sources such as contemporary fashion magazines. By extrapolating such commonplace modes of alteration as an operation, and then applying them to physical objects in real space, Abell makes humorous reference to the (absent) body and the forces that try to control our perception of ourselves and others. This often results in sculptures made from materials with opposing qualities such as elastic and steel, or perfume and concrete. These materials charge and push each other to the limits of their respective properties. Rather than playing with opposites, she destabilizes the materials through their combination and interplay. Bikini Atoll (2016) is a sculpture composed of the black steel frame of a folded sunbed, a black string bikini, and an orange buoy. The frame balances in a way that appears to defy gravity, held in an uncomfortable position by the swimming costume, which is stretched and tied around the chair as if it is being worn. A piece of string connects the whole, hovering contraption to a buoy, anchoring the work lest it float away. The word bikini came about in 1946, and refers to the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands, where the United States had just began to conduct nuclear weapons tests. The designer of the modern bikini hoped it would cause an explosion in society. Abell s title, therefore also refers to the intense exposure to which the native inhabitants were subjected. For I Am Our Common Pronoun, CHART commissioned new sculptures stemming from these recent works. They refer to a relief sculpture in the garden, Nike Adjusting Sandal (c. 420-400 BC), belonging to the sculpture workshop at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where Abell also studied. The ancient drapery of the dress depicted in it belongs to the history of image manipulation and production of idealized bodies. The artist has made oblique comparisons to the gauzy drapery and the shift in sculptors focus in this period from the bodily form to the surface relief and the contemporary phenomenon of the wet t-shirt contest, a practice associated with lewd bars and spring break college holidays in the United States, depicted in movies and television. Instead of discarding or desecrating these phenomena in contemporary society, Abell literally stretches them to their absurd yet logical conclusion. 13 / 40
SIGURÐUR ÁMUNDASON BORN: REYKJAVIK, ICELAND (1986) LIVES AND WORKS: REYKJAVIK, ICELAND Hljóðið (2016) [The Sound] Ballpoint pen and colored pencils on paper 150.5 cm x 149.5 cm Dýrðin í kjaftinum (2017) [The Glory in the Beast s Mouth] Ballpoint pen and colored pencils on paper 150.5 cm x 150 cm Velouria (2017) Ballpoint pen and colored pencils on paper 150.5 cm x 150 cm Óendurgoldin ástar-maskína (2017) [Unrequited Love-Machine] Ballpoint pen and colored pencils on paper 150.5 cm x 149.5 cm Dýrðin í kjaftinum: Annar hluti (2017) [The Glory in the Beasts Mouth: Part II] Ballpoint pen and colored pencils on paper 150.5 cm x 150 cm MDx- sijwðasp-453!! (2016-17) Ballpoint pen and colored pencils on paper 150.5 cm x 150 cm Sigurður Ámundason s drawing, painting, and performance explore human psychology, with specific concern for the complexity of individual identity and the possibility of multiple or split selves. He creates abstract, epic narratives around complex personas, depicting internal struggles situated within larger, collective contexts and myths related to cycles of life and death. The scale of his work has shifted recently, enlarging in relation to the wider scope of the subject matter he takes on in his drawings. Ámundason cites artists, such as Francisco de Goya, as influences on how he approaches the tradition of history painting through his drawing. The drawings included in this exhibition are produced with a common, ballpoint pen on paper, complimented by colored pencils. At the end of 2016, the artist embarked on this series of new works, which are larger in scale, and more complex than previous work, playing with surreal-looking, psychological landscapes inhabited by the same central character. This unnamed abstract figure in MDx-siJWÐASP-453!! (2016-17) breaks down in the other drawings, repeating the self or body parts, as in Dýrðin í kjaftinum (2017) [The Glory in the Beast s Mouth], or dispersed beyond reconstitution into the landscape itself, as in Velouria (2017), as he sorts his way through the world, and through his (split) self. These are spiritual quests which reference an oblique mythology. For instance, Hljóðið (2016) [The Sound], has a comic book-like composition in which the same character moves through different parts of the central composition. This character appears to be on a journey through life (crouched at the bottom of the staircase) to the underworld (holding a torch as he descends into the swirling abyss), at all times searching for some kind of truth involving the self, love, and a search for the purpose of our existence. Collective mythologies and origin stories which pertain to the larger questions addressed by Ámundason are what can bind individuals within society, and even lay its foundation. But instead of collective identification, the individual in the composition breaks down, questioning what constitutes a coherent and contained self. Instead of using myth to make a group of individuals identify commonly, he uses myth to make the individual question whether they may contain a group within themselves. 14 / 40
JOSEFIN JUSSI ANDERSSON BORN: SVENARUM, SWEDEN (1987) LIVES AND WORKS: OSLO, NORWAY KLARA STRÖM BORN: TANUM, SWEDEN (1990) LIVES AND WORKS: GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN HANNAH WIKER WIKSTRÖM BORN: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (1990) LIVES AND WORKS: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN THE NASTY SURPRISE (2017) Performative installation Various materials DATE:FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 16:00-20:00, SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 12:00-18:00, SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 12:00-18:00 LOCATION: BILLEDHUGGERSKOLEN, MAIN ROOM For this exhibition, CHART commissioned a new performance by Josefin Jussi Andersson; she chose to contribute a new performative installation, which is part of her ongoing collaboration with fellow artists, Klara Ström and Hannah Wiker Wikström. Together, their work centers on common research interests. It examines shifts between the individual and the collective as well as issues of normativity concerning gender, sex, body, emotion, psyche, madness, and depression. As a trio, they produced a short film titled, Omslutande/Enfolding (2016) as well as the first draft of the work they will present as part of I Am Our Common Pronoun, titled Vår tids gråterskor Hjerne, Hjerte, Kjønn/The mourners of our time Brain, Heart, Sex (2017), a twelve-hour long performance staged publicly earlier this year at Galleri Podium, Oslo. Over the entire duration of the exhibition, the three artists will perform a new work titled, THE NASTY SURPRISE (2017), a performative installation commissioned by CHART with an extended, looping pop song sung over an experiential dramaturgy of performers, objects, and elements of a stage set. The work follows the narrative structure of a pop song: three verses, three refrains, and a bridge, but drawn out and slowed down to span the exhibition s opening hours before looping. The artists perform live, using their voices and text to relate each verse to a respective body part: the brain, the heart, and the sex. In the refrain, they make signals to create connections between the body parts. A subtle score builds throughout the performance through the artists somatic investigations, searching for new modes of expression while highlighting the performativity of everyday life. The whole performance takes place in an immersive environment filled with platforms and sculptural objects that play on common domestic items. These objects will be amplified through the use of contact microphones and small instruments. The three body parts that structure the work have a correlation to three selves: the intellectual, the emotional, and the sexual. To this end, THE NASTY SURPRISE integrates costumes (made in collaboration with Liquist), scenography, sound, voice and bodies which transform and move as a whole entity. This constant transformation will impact the energy in the room, sculpting it and locating feelings within the space. Gender, eroticism, and role playing are ways in which we are bound to others through desire. All of these things can be performed and can offer the self or the I publicly in order to identify with each other. 15 / 40
ZOE BARCZA BORN: TORONTO, CANADA (1984) LIVES AND WORKS: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN Daddy Issue (2017) Acrylic and vinyl paint on canvas 115 cm x 90 cm Teets (2017) Acrylic and vinyl paint on canvas 320 cm x 110 cm Self-Portrait As Rotary Milking Parlor (2017) Acrylic and vinyl paint on linen, and digital print on polyester 110 cm x 320 cm Zoe Barcza is an artist who paints with airbrushed acrylics and flat layers of vinyl paint, creating soft-edged and ghostly, figurative yet surreal renderings of bodies and text. Her work often features herself as the subject, pictured in relation to various elements of the environment to depict symbiosis and the connection between herself and the world. In these works, she opens up the body through various painterly gestures and inserts elements inside. In the work, Daddy Issue (2017), for instance, the artist cuts an image of her own head neatly between nose and mouth, and stacks the pieces at an angle which reveals a portrait of her father. In Barcza s Self-Portrait As Rotary Milking Parlor (2017), a new triptych commissioned by CHART, she depicts herself nude, reclined on her side facing the viewer in the outer panels. Her body and the flat, monochrome background are rendered in acidic contrasting colors, with deep-toned shadows contouring her muscles, flesh, and hair. The middle panel cuts her body in two, and replaces her midsection with an image of a factory dairy farm. The pipes from the sterile factory meet her body at the edge of the image and connect inside of it to dozens of dairy cows. Through this juxtaposition, she compares and contrasts the human body to that of another mammal, and draws an empathic relationship between the self and its environment. Barcza has referred to this line of inquiry in her work as mimicking the aesthetic strategies of vegan propaganda. The new works Barcza presents in this exhibition relate her own subjectivity to people, animals, and objects that are external to her body but inextricable to the sense of self, including nourishment and preservation of the self as a part of a larger ecology. Family and our relationship to the environment and its food sources, for example, are elements of life that influence who we become and how we develop. Barcza uses painting to visualize and explicate these relationships in a way that departs, first and foremost, from critical self-reflection. 16 / 40
MIRA EKLUND BORN: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (1981) LIVES AND WORKS: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN He s on the phone (Copenhagen version) (2017) from the concert and performance series: Hilbert s Hotel 16-channel sound installation 16 minutes (loop) LIVE PERFORMANCE DATE:SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER, 14:00-14:30 LOCATION: DEN GULE GÅRD Mira Eklund is an artist and musician who uses sound to create abstract landscapes for staging semi-fictive, imaginative narratives that reach beyond the limits of language and our perception of reality. Infinity, eternity, and death, are examples of abstract, spatialized ideas that exist within life or beyond it. The artists thinks of these ideas as realms outside of the physical world, which she can shape through imagination. Eklund conceived of Infinity Hotel (2016-17), as a place in which she, along with an audience, could produce performances and stage happenings about a kind of loss one might experience in a state of infinity rather than life, which is governed by laws of entropy. In Infinity Hotel, she imagined grief over things which do not change slowly over time, but exist forever, therefore necessitating different ideas of attachment and loss. He s on the phone (Copenhagen version) (2017), is a new portion of a larger project, Hilbert s Hotel (2017). Like Infinity Hotel, this new work deals with loss, and takes its name from David Hilbert, a mathematician who designed an abstract model illustrating the concept of infinity. Eklund produced live projections together with artist Martin Malm, which she presented along with musical compositions. The new portion produced for and shown in I Am Our Common Pronoun is an imagined telephone call to the deceased, opening up an imaginary portal to a space in the beyond. The work includes the artist s voice, her friend s voice (who stands in for the artist s late father), as well as older audio recordings of the artist s father s voice. These voices converse with and sing to each other as various mixed sounds reverberate around this central conversation. The voice is a characteristic feature of the self; it is immaterial, yet it stands in for a body, the breath, a spirit, and a character. Dialogue, the exchange of two voices, is a means for building empathy through common ground and simple recognition. For Eklund, it is also a way to evoke an absent body. Although Eklund draws many references from science, she uses her voice or the voice of a fellow artist or loved one as a projection of her own emotions, desires, and longings. 17 / 40
ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ BORN: HELSINKI, FINLAND (1989) LIVES AND WORKS: HELSINKI, FINLAND Justin (2016) Digital print on PVC tarpaulin 6 m x 4 m Kim (2017) Digital print on PVC tarpaulin 6 m x 4 m Caitlyn (2017) Digital print on PVC tarpaulin 6 m x 4 m Bubble (2017) Video 18 minutes 22 seconds Artor Jesus Inkerö s large scale photographs, videos, and performances, are part of a holistic bodily project: a series of rigorous, evolving, self-transformations that transgress boundaries between Inkerö s art and life. Through bodybuilding, dieting, supplements, dress, and digital post-production, Inkerö, whose preferred pronoun is they, establishes an intimate relationship to the material external qualities of the self and how it is projected into the world. Online and at the gym, they are immersed in bodybuilding subcultures and their attendant languages, behaviors, and perceptions. Famous figures from popular culture serve as ideals and models through which to imagine possible new selves, cycling fluidly through a range of genders. Alternatively, in works such as Bubble (2017), the artist adopts movement and gestures within a constructed world to extrapolate the most generic median of contemporary masculinity. In this exhibition, Justin (2016), Kim (2017), and Caitlyn (2017) are each outcomes of Inkerö s intense commitment to identify with the smooth surfaces in images of public figures by mimicking their routine and gestures. As in the original images, they stitch together multiple self-portraits to create a composite self in the image of another. Bodybuilding is a process in which muscles are treated separately and specific exercises target specific body parts. As with image editing software, it is a way to split up the self into pieces and stitch together all the perfected surfaces and angles into a whole. The resulting images, printed as public banners, use an advertising format suited for maximum public exposure and consumption, making Inkerö s new constructed self subject to admiration and judgement. In advertising, identification with an ad s subject is a tool to manipulate behavior. The work plays with this by considering to what extent do we see ourselves or our possible selves in these ubiquitous images of others? Inkerö s works examine the comfort we seek through identification with others and through the stability of generic forms and predictable behaviors; on that level, it is a deeply humanizing project. It is a means of joining the world of appearances and highlighting the conflation of self and other, omnipresent as a form of control in late capitalist society. In essence, these works are about what one may go through, under these conditions, in order to identify with or feel a connection to another person. 18 / 40
YASSINE KHALED BORN: SEFROU, MOROCCO (1988) LIVES AND WORKS: HELSINKI, FINLAND Monitor Man (2016) Interactive performance and HD video 10 minutes INTERACTIVE PERFORMANCE MONITOR MAN DATE: FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 16:00-17:30 & 19:00-20:30, SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 13:30-15:00 & 16:00-17:30, SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 13:30-15:00 & 16:00-17:30 LOCATION:VARIOUS LOCATIONS AROUND CHART ART FAIR AND CHART EMERGING Yassine Khaled s sculptures, installations, performances, paintings, and videos focus on the disparity between the power and wealth of some, and the powerlessness and poverty of others in our globalized world. He visualizes power relations between individuals caused by, for instance, ever-increasing gaps in wealth, socio-cultural differences, labor conditions, educational opportunities, and religious differences the conditions that determine one s level of comfort and stability in society. Khaled was born, raised, and received his artistic training in Morocco and lives and currently works in Helsinki; this geographic and cultural shift has had an evident impact on his work. For I Am Our Common Pronoun, Khaled is present on-site for the course of the exhibition to perform Monitor Man (2016), his embodiment of virtual communication in public space. The artist wears a helmet affixed with an ipad, which offers a real-time connection to a person outside of Europe. Through the use of technology and his own body, he uses the performance to transgress actual, national borders which separate people. The performance, sited in Copenhagen, is an opportunity for visitors to meet with someone who is physically far away, outside of Europe s borders in non-western countries, and restricted in their freedom of movement. Monitor Man was inspired by the current refugee crisis and how it is unfolding in relation to the internet, social media, and the omnipresence of technology. The project began on the streets of Helsinki, but is ongoing, as the artist presents the work in different locations around the Western world. Technology offers the possibility to connect more people than ever before, yet paradoxically, the rise of smartphone technology is linked directly to a rise in depression and anxiety, particularly in the West. Khaled pares down the ambition of technological platforms like social media. He focuses on one-to-one connections over vast networks of loose connections. In this work, technology is used as a means to connect people, with reactions ranging from deep empathy between geographically distant bodies to subtle gestures of avoidance and dismissal. The role of Khaled s physical body merging with the face and speech of someone elsewhere heightens the feeling of human confrontation, which can disappear in cyberspace. By merging his physical presence with the digital projection of another, he confuses his own identity and lends his body to a common subject. 19 / 40
EIRIK SÆTHER BORN: HALDEN, NORWAY (1983) LIVES AND WORKS: OSLO, NORWAY CHINA (2017) SITE-SPECIFIC Installation Dimensions VARIABLE In his sculptures, installations, performances, and videos, Eirik Sæther views architecture, decor, and fashion as shells: layers of concealment and containment which express and shape individual and collective human behavior. His work often takes the form of assemblages made of elements from different environments, ranging from the found and filthy to the exclusive and bespoke. Sæther has also worked collaboratively as a founding member of the artist group Institutt for Degenerert Kunst (2008 15). CHINA (2017), the exhibition s introductory work, is a site-specific installation commissioned for CHART. The architectural and sculptural work departs from a generic hotel corridor with an adjoining room, including details and objects that are foreign or strange. Sæther flips the architecture upside down, a simple gesture that draws acute awareness to these usually innocuous surroundings and objects. The title, by extension, makes reference to the common schoolyard phrase, dig to China, which imagines the unknown country as the flipside of the world under our feet. In adulthood, and particularly in this political moment, China functions in a similarly abstract fashion as an eastern other through which the west defines itself. CHINA stems off of Sæther s earlier works such as, Family Friendly (2017), a copper, house-like installation that acts as a border and container for various sculptures and videos. Where the house acts as a barrier which cordons the individual or family from the rest of society, the hotel is a larger, maze-like container which invites and shelters otherwise unconnected individuals side by side, one on top of the other for brief periods of time. The form and decor of such environments are designed in a purposefully similar, generic fashion. Meant to offend no one, it signals familiarity, safety, comfort, and a kind of naturalness to an otherwise strange and unpredictable situation. Within this flipped environment, Sæther places new sculptural arrangements related to human belonging and how bodily presence is felt through a relationship to external objects and architecture. In Sæther s work, language and clothing are primary means of individual expression. Architecture and decor extend this idea as secondary layers used to express identities and to contain and surround individuals. The way we speak to one another, dress, and assemble in space entail codes and decisions which can signal inclusion to a certain group, or set or ourselves apart from or cause exclusion. Sæther undercuts the comfort of the general hotel container, making it into a strange place in which we become acutely aware of how it structures our relationship to others. 20 / 40
HELENE NYMANN BORN: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (1982) LIVES AND WORKS: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK Whether We Are (2017) HD Video Installation 10 minutes 10 seconds (loop) Memoria and other Aftermaths (2016) HD video 2 minutes 46 seconds (loop) Helene Nymann s multi-disciplinary artistic practice addresses the idea of embodied knowledge: contextual and experiential forms of receiving and transmitting ideas. Nymann s work incorporates forms of dance and other movement to probe the ways in which memory can be stimulated through associative material and movement. She implicates viewers as they enter into her immersive environments made up of moving image, sound, and sculpture; in turn, their bodies influence how sound reverberates and how light refracts. For I Am Our Common Pronoun, Nymann presents Whether We Are (2017), a video installation featuring a classically trained male ballet dancer. Instead of dictating choreography to the dancer, Nymann employs a method derived from Butoh, a form of dance developed to disrupt the perceived visual harmony associated with Japanese culture following the country s devastation in WWII. Butoh is short for Ankoku Butoh, or dance of darkness. Tatsumi Hijikata, who founded the movement, used this term to refer to a realm at the limits of perception, which the dancer enters into with their entire body. It is traditionally performed in a slow, expressive manner which channels past events into bodily and cognitive responses. Nymann encouraged the dancer in this work to investigate emotions and trauma as a form of embodied knowledge. Dance, when thought of as a medium, such as painting, has an extensive history and prehistory, which it carries with it into the present through each new work and development. Unlike painting, which traditionally separates the artist from the plane of representation, dance is an embodied practice; it requires the performer to take in and transmit to an audience the movements and by extension the traditions, emotions, and memories of previous generations alongside their own. The dancer in Whether We Are, utilises the tradition of one culture to explore his own consciousness and condition born out of another. Cross-cultural communication at this level is a way to expand one s idea of the self and engage with a person of another time, space, and culture. 21 / 40
VIDHA SAUMYA BORN: BIHAR, INDIA (1984) LIVES AND WORKS: HELSINKI, FINLAND GUNPOWDER (2013-2017) Series of 28 drawings, Cello Gripper on paper 21 cm x 25 cm (each) Drawing is Vidha Saumya s primary medium. She selects humble materials to create a sense of vulnerability in her subject matter. She evokes elements, like sound, simply through her handling of a common ballpoint pen, controlling the thickness and strength of each line with deliberation and intention. Her works range in scale from intimate notebook compositions to large scale works on paper hung on the wall, and center mainly on the body and a range of subjectivities. She projects and weaves her own observations subtly into her imagined scenes. Born in Bihar, India, raised in Delhi and Mumbai, India and currently based in Helsinki, Finland, Saumya reflects on these respective countries social orders, conflicts of class and castes, religious differences, and the role of women in society as a way to play with and challenge norms, taboos, and boundaries. For instance, in EXPLOSIVES (2009), a book of fifteen drawings, Saumya visualizes the questions and answers in a Mumbai-based sex therapist s advice column. Women in bras and men with naked torsos and fancy underwear, all in various stages of undress, take center stage in surreal scenes full of fabric and interior design patterns. Together these elements arouse collective anxieties and reveal the clouds of ignorance which surround sexual subjects. For this exhibition, Saumya presents twenty-eight new drawings titled GUNPOWDER (2013-17). The series, which has never been presented publicly, branches off the same format and subject matter as EXPLOSIVES: responses to what the artist characterizes as the surfeit of libidinous images that flood the market and infiltrate people s minds in the age of Globalization. In GUNPOWDER, she shifts her gaze towards figures and backdrops based on observation: hours in hospitals, and travelling back and forth between India and Finland. She represents a wider range of genders in the present series, and uses humor to wring out the drawn, sexual fantasies. Saumya s drawings expand her idea of herself through identification with the desires and absurdities of others. Drawing what extends beyond the boundaries of normative society, she enters into a range of other possible selves, and lives them out in her work. Through this mode of identification, she expands ideas of what is or could be accepted. 22 / 40
AMALIE SMITH BORN: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (1985) LIVES AND WORKS: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK The exhibition is communicated in public space in Copenhagen through a poster featuring an excerpt from Smith s I Civil (2012), in it s original Danish form. The excerpt is also included in this booklet. The exhibition s title, I Am Our Common Pronoun, originates from a line in Smith s third book, which she translates in English as Recollection. Smith is an artist who has taken part in various exhibitions as well as a prolific writer who has published seven books since her graduation from the Danish Academy of Creative Writing in 2009. Her writing probes and questions the stability of I as a stable subject in language, and figures it instead as a space for collective identification. The body in her writing is a porous container of internal shards that extend, connect, and therefore breakdown the perceived barrier between the self and the world. Her latest book, Et hjerte i alt (2017) [A Heart in Everything], is compilation of ten years worth of texts and pictures she produced for exhibitions and lectures, including excerpts from sources such as notebooks, newspaper slides, and magazines. This collected material refers to the ways in which biology, technology, language, and images connect people to the world and to each other. The sentence borrowed from Smith for this exhibition s title was selected for its resonance with the theme which emerged between the works in the exhibition, namely their shared questioning of individual identity as a sovereign and stable category. The tone in this ultimate line of dialogue vibrates between a statement of inclusion and a threat. The excerpt of I Civil from which the exhibition title is taken, appears to be a dialogue between two or more unnamed and, therefore indistinguishable entities. The use of Smith s excerpt in this booklet and on posters is not an artwork; therefore it is not part of the exhibition proper. Smith s text draws heavily on the work of Judith Butler, a theorist working in the tradition of Jacques Derrida, who developed deconstruction as a method to critique Western philosophical traditions. Butler s work, in part, considers how one s subjectivity is formed through language and our relationships to society, and grasps what we cannot know about ourselves. For Butler, this is ultimately a moral question. Likewise, Smith s experiments with subjectivity in language characterize the artists in the exhibition s various, underlying, searching, empathetic impulses. TEXT VÆRK / POSTER TEXT : - Jeg tror det. - Hvad tror du? - At vores henvendthed forpligter os på hinanden. - The I is the moment of failure in every narrative effort to give an account of oneself, skriver hun også. - Det er et sted at begynde. - Hvor? - Jeget som selv-fortællingens uklare punkt. Jeg er ankommet til sproget, jeg ejer det ikke. - Hvem er du? - Jeg er vores fælles pronomen. udrag af Amalie Smiths I Civil (Gyldendal, 2012) 23 / 40