The purpose of this exhibition—very much in the spirit of Asger Jorn—is to throw in a third chess player, to suspend the accepted rules and strategies. The artists presented here do not make it easy to pinpoint exactly where their engagement comes from, but they all seem to attempt a fundamental dismantling of what it means to make and practice art today. Elements of uncertainty surface, notions of fact and fiction are questioned, and any socio-political engagement is blurred. In place of aesthetic predictability these artists display a playfulness towards the conventions of visual and literary language. Not yest a deconstructing in to a absolute zero but even rebuilding of something new that we don't understand.
Introspection and exhaustive self-reflection are explored by the artists in this show, yet they manage to resist any narcissistic celebration of their own creativity and identity. Along with their search for meaning and their attempts to redefine accepted terms, there is a keen awareness of their limitations as artists, as workers, as human beings. They are all grappling here with questions that exist within wider social perspectives: the artist vs. society, socialism vs. capitalism, right vs. left, globalization’s alienation vs. local engagement. These artists do not give us platitudes or simple answers to today’s questions, nor do they try and solve the identity crisis of our society. But through their work they seem to be able to stop us asking the same old questions for which we have never been able to provide any answers. But they manage to turn the issue so that our die-cut answers are not useful. The only thing that sems clearly is that nothing ever is just a nothing.
A Very Short Introduction to Nothing
Malmo - Sweden
From 31/8 until 23/9
Curated by:
Per Brunskog
Artists:
