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22/6/2007

Per Huttner

Totalbunkern, Copenhagen

Demonstrating the Spiritual

Totalbunkern's inaugural exhibition will present "Demonstrating the Spiritual" which is Per Hüttner's first solo exhibition in Denmark. The work has been specifically produced for the space and for the exhibition. Thematically Hüttner returns to the white and blank demonstration banner, a theme which has often been recurring in his work throughout his career. The banners are central both in the performance and in the drawings.

Contrary to the previous to work the banners are soiled in different ways this time. In the drawings the signs that are under normal circumstances meant for the public and mediated space of the demonstration are inserted into the human body. They enter (magically?) all the orifices and remain white and innocent even when they are bathed in bodily fluids. It is unclear what purpose these political carriers of meaning serve for their equally strange users. Are they sexual toys, surgical instruments or pure phantasies?

The opening performance is centred around a dozen white demonstration banners made in white fabric. This means that like in the drawings they do not serve their normal purpose - but remain literally impotent and useless. Hüttner uses this non-functionality to raise questions about how meaning is created in our media saturated society and how the body and our bodily needs and expressions are muted.

Hüttner will also show two photographs recently taken in Spain and Holland. They were shot at night and with several minutes long exposure times to make them dreamlike and poetic. In one photograph we see a virtually naked man on the roof of some car cleaning depot that brings to mind the work of Ed Rusha. From the man's anus there emanates a very long, white and cordlike substance. In the second picture which is taken on a deserted beach we see various white, domestic objects such as plates and pillows and the top of the picture is bathed in almost supernatural In the brightness we can make out two white legs that are advancing in the shallow water.

Per Hüttner (b.1967) is a Swedish artist currently based in Paris. In his work he takes inspiration from the human warmth and spiritual depth of the cinema of the 1970's particularly Oshima and Tarkovsky. He is influenced by artists such as Yves Klein, Francisco Goya and Joseph Beuys and he sees art as a tool for us to relate to our individual strangeness and perversions since these have little or no room in current capitalist society. Hüttner has shown extensively in Europe, Northern America, Australia and Asia, recent solo exhibitions include "Repetitive Time" at Göteborgs konstmuseum, "Xiao Yao You" at Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou and "I am a Curator" at Chisenhale Gallery in London. Participation in group shows include venues like The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, ICA in London and Centro de Arte de Salamanca. A major monograph on the artist with texts by Scottish art writer Duncan McLaren was published in 2004. Three more monographs will be published in 2007.

Private View and performance 23 June at 3 pm

Totalbunkern
William wains gade, 12 - Copenhagen

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