Spatial works
Group exhibitio
Main hall, Färgfabriken
Artists: Jason Dodge, Tris Vonna-Michell, Alicja Kwade and Olafur Eliasson.
Curator: Theodor Ringborg.
Spatial Works looks into the differential matters of installation art. Featuring the work of four internationally acclaimed artists, the exhibition suggests a superseding terminology regarding spatial works in an identification of their differences.
The terminology of installation art, in its contemporary use, refers exclusively to an apparent spatiality. With an occasional highlighting of formal characteristics, large-scale, new media interactive and other. The notion that the terminology of installation art is insufficient in the communication of this artistic expression is absolute. Installation, as a term, is a mere sign of a blurred description of a relation to space. The works have become more spoken of in terms general enough to be appropriated to any form in any space and have therefore lost their differentiation. Everything spatial is apparently an installation. Installation as such, therefore, can no longer be said to exist, as `everything´ is, as a descriptive term, nothing.
It should be understood that we have been using the term installation in a broadly uncritical inclusive manner, clouding the comprehension of the complex sensory and cognitive apparatuses regarding the orchestration of these works. Attempting to refrain from the contemporary vocabulary the exhibition gathers artists in whose work variances of spatiality can be found. Appropriating a terminology of Permutations, Thespian, Temporal and Psychodramatic, the works exemplify manners of creating spatiality.
The exhibition is a result of the research made by Theodor Ringborg during his time at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. Fulfilling the requirements for an MA from the WIRE-curatorial program.
About the artists
Jason Dodge – the work of Jason Dodge challenges the action of looking. Positioned according to a categorizing and signification the objects, presented as `remains´ and pieces of evidence, are subject to the careful selection of the artist. Contextualizing the objects causes an interpretation of the individual items, as they no longer offer the habitual perspective ascribed to them. The permutations presented by Jason Dodge are in effect embedded with references to the expanded significance of the work.
Tris Vonna-Michell – the thespian arrangements of arcane ephemera, slide-projectors and negatives form associations to the intimate performance by Tris Vonna-Michell. During the fluent, often rapid, monologues the objects and their arrangement act as aids for audience in following the narrative weave presented. What is seen is not only effects of the performance but also representational as a residue of that act. The objects are thus intimately interconnected to the performance as thespian items of remembrance.
Alicja Kwade – the aspiration of portraying a scenario, admitting the beholder to reason in concluding a temporal occurrence is a mannerism of its own. The temporal arrangements activate a dramaturgy of the beholder as an intellectual re-creator and interpreter of scenarios and arrangements. Alicja Kwade’s works present themselves to the viewer as events occurred. The viewer intellectually re-creates the temporal aspects of what has seemingly happened. Thus altering the viewer’s perception and experience of the space. Making the observer comprehend the spatial aspects of the piece through the temporal expanded significance of the work.
Olafur Eliasson – the work `Your Space Embracer´ 2004, is a harsh beam of light directed towards a hanging mirrored ring. As the ring turns, a halo of light encompasses the space. The undulating light that traverses across the room creates a phenomenology of perception. Both artist and beholder become therefore invested in Merleau Ponty’s essential phenomenological problem, as nothing is more difficult than to know precisely what we see. Everything that is true about the work is equally true of the space around it. And in the phenomenological realm neither one nor the other is more real. The viewer becomes an intricate part of the scenario played out, revolving solely around the perception upon the object in which a psychodramatic situation becomes apparent.
The exhibition is done in cooperation with the Polish Institute, Stockholm and made possible with the help from Konstfack University College of Art, Craft and Design.