calendario eventi  :: 

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7/4/2011

Two exhibitions

Overgaden - Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen

Sonja Lillebaek Christensen
Nothing Else Matters

In an unguarded corner of a psychiatric hospital, patients have for decades scratched signatures and dates into the yellow brick facade: small, unregarded testimonies to forgotten stories and destinies. In her slide installation from 2011, Rygerum, Oringe Sindssygehospital, Vordingborg, Danmark (1907-1996) (Smoking Room, Oringe Psychiatric Hospital, Vordingborg, Denmark (1907-1996)), Sonja Lillebæk Christensen zooms in on these enigmatic signs. Enlarged in format, they demand our attention like unresolved stories that stimulate our urge to invent narratives about the hospital’s residents and their lives.

In this extensive solo exhibition, Lillebæk Christensen presents a series of installations, several of which were specifically created for the characteristic premises of Overgaden. With images in a huge scale insistently occupying the space, the viewer is drawn into works of widely differing character in terms of narrative and form. Using slides, photo wallpaper, HD video and YouTube clips, leaps are created between a shipwrecked Portuguese sailor, a fictional crime scene and a sampled male universe with roaring truck engines and heavy metal.

Despite the absence of a clear theme, a context nonetheless arises. All of the works confront us with a wondering, observing gaze, which creates uncertainty about what is seen. In documentary form, Lillebæk Christensen highlights things that are normally overlooked or considered ‘uninteresting’. As she explains it herself:
“Through my work, I emphasise aspects of the world that are not otherwise given much attention, either because they are insufficiently smart, exciting or winner-like. My stubbornness urges me to tell stories that do not just echo society’s existing norms.”

In an intimate and sometimes quirky and humorous visual language, Lillebæk Christensen opens up the possibility of re-reading our stereotypical ideas about our fellow human beings and our surroundings. An example is the video work Gerningsstedet II ( Crime Scene II) from 2009, in which she recycles classic detective story elements to puncture the media-created criminal mythology surrounding the South Harbour area of Copenhagen. Reality and fiction are woven into one another in a tension-filled suspense that never culminates in a dramatic climax, but instead progressively undermines the premises of the action itself.

In the exhibition, Sonja Lillebæk Christensen raises questions about the nature of narrative. What is required to create a story? What do we expect from it? And what stories can be constructed at all? Through these issues, she touches on society’s dominant perceptions and power relationships – but without identifying and criticising these from a biased and comfortable position.

About the artist
Sonja Lillebæk Christensen (b. 1972) graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in 2003. She has held solo exhibitions at Stalke Up North (2009) and Møstings Hus (2008), and has taken part in numerous group exhibitions in Denmark and abroad.

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Second Floor: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Second Floor
During the same period, under the collective title Second Floor, Overgaden will house a number of long-term events and shorter exhibitions presenting aspects of contemporary art that are otherwise rarely offered space in more established, institutional contexts. For Overgaden it is of vital importance to create room for the many facets of the latest art, and over the next two months, film, sound art and art publications will challenge the more traditional exhibition format. An updated programme for Second Floor will be published at Overgaden’s website.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Primitive The programme for Second Floor will kick off with the spectacular installation Primitive (2009) by the Thai film director, video artist and architect Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Weerasethakul, one of the most important filmmakers of our day, rose to prominence in the film world when he won the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2010 with the film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives − the jewel in the crown of this film project about historical memory, transformation and rebirth.

Primitive is set in the village of Nabua in north-east Thailand, which suffered a cruel fate during the Thai army’s campaign against Communism from the 1960s to the 1980s − a chapter of history which today has largely been repressed in the collective memory of the Thai people. During the occupation by the authorities a large proportion of the men of the village disappeared, which in Weerasethakul’s cinematic universe finds a symbolic counterpart in the region’s ancient legend about a ghost widow who kidnaps any man who enters her realm.

On the basis of local spiritism and mythology, the story of Nabua is reawakened in the borderland between fact and fiction. Through the use of consistent imagery, ranging from the semi-documentary to the poetical and dream-like, the widow town is reinterpreted as a community of men freed from the ghost widow. The men, descendants of the Communist peasants, lead the way on a journey that creates memories and dream scenarios in the jungle.

The exhibition, which has been created in collaboration with CPH PIX, consists of seven short, interdependent film sequences which, scattered around the upper floor, give the experience a spatial dimension. The observer can move freely in and out of the various parts of the work, which can be seen both individually and as criss-crossing correspondences.

About the artist
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970) was born in Bangkok and trained in architecture and film-making in Thailand and the USA. He has won many prestigious awards, including, besides the Palme d’Or (2010), the Un Certain Regard prize (2002) and the 2004 Jury Prize in Cannes.

10 - 22 May: Second Floor will devote itself to the theme of the art publication, under the title Art + Text, which, in addition to the annual art publications fair, will also offer curated exhibitions and a live section which will include presentations, talks, debates and confessions.

24 - 29 May: The programme will round off with the exhibition project Kunst og æter (Art and the Ether), in which the Lydwerk group will highlight the interface between the medium of radio and sound art. The exhibition will be supplemented by a mini-festival that will transform Overgaden into an acoustic playground, with workshops and lectures.

Overgaden is Copenhagen’s innovative exhibition venue for Danish and international contemporary art. With varying exhibitions and events such as artist talks, lectures, performances and film screenings, Overgaden acts as a platform for the latest developments on the art scene, and as a forum for discussion and debate.

Overgaden is supported by the Danish Arts Council’s Committee for Visual Art.

Image: Gerningssted II, 2450 København (Sydhavnen) Danmark, 2009. HD video (16:9).

Contact: For further information, please contact press officer Anna Holm by e-mail at: ah@overgaden.org or tel. +45 3257 7273.

Opening reception: Friday 8 April 2011, 5.00-8.00 pm

Overgaden. Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17 DK-1414 Copenhagen K
Tuesday - Sunday: 1 pm - 5 pm, Thursday: 1 pm - 8 pm
Free admittance

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