Tag: Søren Dahlgaard
PHOTOS @ ROHDE CONTEMPORARY
On Paper
There is something innocent and light in the image of a paper fly like on this invitation .
Just think about a kid playing with it. – What is more suitable for a playful exhibition with
artworks, which are making use of this media in all kind of way? Isn’t paper the basic medium
of making art? There are surely very few artists who never used it in their creative process at
a certain point.
But nevertheless – paper as a medium is not as easy as it seems: Its maybe 2200 year old
history might about to be over. It is definitely in its last chapter. In the old China paper was
something holy and the making of it a carefully protected secret. The Arabs brought it to the
west and with Gutenberg’s letter press machine it got its breakthrough: money, books,
documents, pamphlets, pictures, photos, photocopies. It became the communication media
from the highest to the lowest culture the next 500 years.
Now we are in the middle of a new revolution of communication: More and more information
in our culture becomes digital. The computer displaces paper, which means that a material
information carrier is displaced by a virtual one. We can only guess where it leads. Fact is:
credit cards displace money, kids are using their notebooks instead of exercise books and
David Hockney just demonstrated how great it is to make drawings on his iphone.
So what does paper mean for artists today? There is surely not one answer. But there are
plenty to find in the show at 55 artists from 13 nations with 4 to 12 works each will show
how lively this media still is and not leave much free space on the wall.
The following artists participate:
Søren Dahlgaard//The Breathing Room
At first glance The Breathing Room appears to be an ordinary white room.
As you enter the space – your expectations about the familiar white cube exhibition space is challenged. The walls are made from soft pvc canvas. Assisted by air, which continuously is pushed and sucked into the space behind each wall – the canvas slowly curves into a convex shape and after that a concave shape. This repetitive movement mimics human breathing. The breathing sound from the ventilator is present. It explores the performative aspects and possibilities in architecture.
The art historic context is the famous text – Inside the white cube – first published by ArtForum in 1976 by artist and writer Brian O’Doherty.
The Breathing Room was first exhibited at the Singapore Biennale in 2008. After this presentation in Copenhagen, the installation will go to Los Angeles at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery.
Also exhibited during The Breathing Room show are related works by Søren Dahlgaard, for instance The Breathing Painting, which relate to the painting and how we perceive the painting. Paintings typically have a motif – abstract or figurative. It works with colors, patterns or space.
Søren Dahlgaard takes a step back into the process and asks: What is a painting? Can a painting be something different from what we are used to? Can it behave in a certain way?
Here the painting has come to life as the painting breathes. The canvas moves slowly out – convex – and in – concave. It is a performative painting, which challenges the rules for the perception of what a painting can be.
Another work is the photo series The Perspective of Breathing, which follows the air path through the flex hose from the ventilator to the white wall.
So this show presents you with a Søren Dahlgaard without the dough, the bread or dripping paint!