Pause – Ett möte mellan konst, arkitektur, performance, fotografi och design

Utställning
Stora salen, Färgfabriken

Medverkande: Jean-Pierre Khazem och Andreas Angelidakis

Curator Jan Åman
Med-curator Nikola Jankovic

Pause is much more than an exhibition. It is the result of a process that has been going on for several years, in which Färgfabriken has had a close dialogue with photographer and artist Jean-Pierre Khazem from Paris, and with architect Andreas Angelidakis from New York. What was initially a project of fairly limited ambitions has, in time, grown into what will be Färgfabriken’s hitherto biggest production. It brings together performance, art, photography, architecture, design and much more – not side by side, but together, as the various components of one and the same overall project. This will also be reflected in a book which will be produced in connection with the exhibition, as well as in web productions and video documentation.

Pause began in an exchange with Jean-Pierre Khazem. His pictures, in which he consistently uses masks on his models, have attracted worldwide attention, both in art circles and in commercial photography. He photographed last year’s talked-about global Diesel campaign. He has also worked with most of the important fashion and lifestyle magazines in the world, and has exhibited as an artist in a number of places in France and other countries. Because he always puts masks on his models, his shoots become a kind of performance acts. Behind the mask, the models are blind, which changes their relationships both to their own bodies and to the outside world. And the onlooker’s relationship to the model changes too, as the model becomes as much sculpture as human being. This is also reflected in Khazem’s pictures.

Ever since its inception in 1995, Färgfabriken has been greatly interested in investigating and staging processes rather than traditional exhibitions. In this way, its projects become a kind of investigations in which those involved have an opportunity to try new paths, and at the same time reflect on themselves. With Jean-Pierre Khazem it seemed natural, therefore, to try to find a way of allowing the public to take part in something more than the simple presentation of the final result, the printed photographs. We wanted to find a way of showing the full, rich process behind his pictures.

That is why architect Andreas Angelidakis was invited to join the project – so that he might make a stage and a space for Jean-Pierre Khazem to work on and in. Andreas Angelidakis is one of the most interesting younger architects of today. He was shortlisted for the Cooper Union award as the best architect in the United States in 2001. He is equally at home in real and in virtual settings, and his projects – like Khazem’s pictures – often straddle the border between the real and the computer-animated. In keeping with this, Angelidakis has created a space that turns concepts on their head – and which serves as a backdrop and a stage for Khazem’s shoots, for the performances and for the final exhibition.

Pause is curated by Jan Åman of Färgfabriken. Co-curator is Nikola Jankovic, Paris. 

In collaboration with

Skanska/Nya hem, Alcro-Beckers, Tryckhus 2, Svenskt Papper, the French Embassy in Stockholm and AFAA, among others