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19/1/2007

Art of the Possible

Lunds Konsthall, Lund

Miriam Backstrom, Ion Grigorescu, Arturas Raila and Raqs Media Collective

What is possible in art? Is anything impossible? What are the boundaries of art practice and how can they be stretched? Art of the Possible is inspired by the philosopher Henri Bergson’s thought that ‘it is the real which makes itself possible, and not the possible which becomes real.’ The opposite, Bergson points out, would mean that our actions are not free. The exhibition seizes this freedom: the freedom art needs to test itself and the world.

Ion Grigorescu (Romania, b 1945) is now being recognised as one of the most interesting European artists of his generation. The term self-reflection is a precise description of how he reworks and reformulates his multi-layered production of the 1970s: painting, drawing, photography, film, performance, text. Grounded is a new version of the retrospective installation of thirty-year-old photographs that he first put together for Salzburger Kunstverein in 2006. A generous selection of his films is also shown.

Miriam Backstrom (Sweden, b 1967) favours speculation as her working method. Her recent works are based on close collaborations with actors, artists and other intellectuals. The outcomes are presented in films, photographs and texts. With the initial idea of ‘creating a new artist, or at least the image of a new artist’, Miriam Backstrom has given the art student Kira Carpelan access to all her material, contacts and sources of funding. Kira Carpelan is creating Miriam Backstrom’s upcoming solo exhibition at Fargfabriken in Stockholm. Kira Carpelan, Miriam Backstrom’s own film about their one-year collaboration, is premiered here.

Raqs Media Collective (India). The members (Jeebesh Bagchi, b 1965, Monica Narula, b 1969, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, b 1968) have a background in documentary film and philosophy, and they also run the interdisciplinary research project Sarai in New Delhi. Raqs accepted the rather unusual commission to do an illustration of the ideas behind the exhibition, and have created the work investment % insurance, which discusses our attitudes towards possibilities and risks in moving images, sound and photographic posters. The text piece Please Do Not Touch the Work of Art is also shown.

Arturas Raila (Lithuania, b 1962) uses the notion of articulation to describe his uncompromising art practice. During the last ten years he has investigated different marginal groups (art professors, amateur poets, right-wing extremists, car enthusiasts) and tried to understand their thinking. He shows The Power of the Earth, a series of photographs of pre-Christian holy sites in Lithuania and people attempting to revive ancient religious systems. The work, first shown at Frankfurter Kunstverein in 2006, marks a new phase in his art; he is now focusing on the ‘perfect image’ as the sole bearer of content and meaning.

Curated by Anders Kreuger. Small catalogue available.

Lund Konsthall
Martenstorget 3 - Lund

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