Galerie Buchholz in Köln
24 January – 4 April, 2020
Opening Friday, 24 January, 7-9 pm
Galerie Buchholz
Neven-DuMont-Straße 17 · 50667 Köln
Tel +49 221 2574946 Fax +49 221 253351
post@galeriebuchholz.de · www.galeriebuchholz.de
Daniel Buchholz & Christopher Müller
14.12—25.01.2020
Artist talk with Bengt af Klintberg, Teddy Hultberg
and Beth Laurin starts at 14:00 14/12
(English below)
Som den förgrundsgestalt Sten Hanson onekligen var överbryggade han med hjälp av användandet av olika medier och uttrycksformer statiska gränser. I hans otaliga performanceverk använde han oblygt sig själv som en megafon för detta. Under 50- och 60-talen började han med experimentell poesi och egenkomponerade musikaliska alster, och lät dessa flyta ihop och befrukta varandra. Han kom att bli en pionjär bland de konstnärer som hängav sig åt text- och ljudkomposition. I utställningen visas noter, urkunder, fotografier, collage och andra bildverk som ackompanjerat Hansons livsverk.
Likt kollegan Öyvind Fahlström i sitt berömda verk Fåglar i Sverige, där denne transkriberar svenska till olika fågelläten, (tänk på de transkriptioner av fågelläten man kan se i fågelböcker) utforskade Hanson ständigt språket och ljuden med performanceakten. Själv sa Hanson dock om Fahlström att han i sammanhanget var för textuell, och föredrog när det visuella och audiella greppade styrspaken. Humorn måste nämnas i sammanhanget då de märkliga ljuden från orden och mumlandet kors och tvärs basunerades ut till publiken. Detta genomsyrade Hansons oeuvre. Han var också en passionerad boksamlare med allt från klassisk lyrik till den avantgardistiska poesi han själv utgjorde en hörnsten av. År 1993 blev han invald i Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien för sin obestritt stora gärning för svenskt musikliv. Med världen som arena turnerade han med sina text- och ljudkompositioner. Ekot klingar än idag då hans många flikar på Discogs (en internationell hemsida för musik och vinyler) vida överträffar antalet hos helt samtida världsartister när det kommer till utgivna projekt och samarbeten.
Beth Laurin ansökte och kom in på Konstfack 1953 när hon var arton år gammal, där hon började skulpturfacket. Med livslång erfarenhet i skulptur förstår vi varför hon av flera källor kallats Sveriges Louise Bourgeois, och utgör svensk konsthistoria.
Linearritning övar perspektivseende samt geometrisk återgivning i teckningar, de framställer inte endast former hur de uppfattas vid första anblicken, men också de bakomliggande linjerna. Laurins linearritningar från det tidiga femtiotalet fångar också det transcendentala mötet mellan formen, perfektionen, linjerna och enheten. Laurins skisser och verk på papper av idéer, tankar och skulpturer som utförts av hennes hand fungerar som en lika självklar Laurinsk helhet och form som de berömda skulpturerna. Skisserna transporterar oss in i dem och in i Laurins universum. Beth berättar om en workshop som hölls på Island 1981 med konstnärer från Skandinavien, övriga Europa och U.S.A. Där fick hon en känsla av märkliga sammanträffanden om hur saker och ting hör ihop. Islänningarna säger inte att något är magiskt eller transcendentalt, utan att det upphöjda är naturligt.
Genom en ny vänskap och samarbete med amerikanen Philip Corner på Island fick sedan hon tillfälle att resa till New York där hon lärde känna och samarbeta med fler Fluxus-konstnärer.
Beth Laurins mor, pianisten Anita Harrison, tog med henne till Fylkingen för första gången 1950, och sedan dess har hon medverkat i oräkneliga tillställningar och utställningar där. På Fylkingen lärde hon känna Sten Hanson och de följde varandra genom åren. På tunnelbanan en dag 2009 möttes de och Laurin sade till Hanson:
–Titta ut genom fönstret så får du se en bit av mina teckningar! Varpå Hanson tog hennes händer och svarade: Det är bra att vi gamlingar håller igång!
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The prominent cultural character Sten Hanson (1936-2013) challenged static boundaries utilizing a variation of different media and expressions. Unabashed he hammered this out via countless performances. During the 50s and 60s he started writing experimental poetry, but also composed sounds letting them cross pollinate each other and merge. He became a pioneer amongst the artists that dedicated themselves to text-sound composition. Sheet music, documents, photography, collage and other works is exhibited in the show that accompanied his lifework.
Much like the famous work “Birds of Sweden” by Öyvind Fahlström where he transcribes Swedish into various sounds of the chirping of birds, (just think of the transcriptions of the sound of birds written in text) Hanson alike explored
Beth Laurin b. 1935 applied and got accepted at the Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in 1953 when she was 18 years old. Laurin started working with sculpture as a student. Many sources have called her Sweden’s own Louise Bourgeois and can be said to be an important part of Sweden’s contemporary art history.
Linear drawing is a method to learn perspective vision, as well as geometrical display in drawings. Not only do they present how shapes are perceived at first sight, but also their underlying meaning. Laurin’s linear drawings from the early 50s catches something transcendental in the meeting between shape, perfectionism and lines creating a unity. Laurin’s drawings and artworks on paper, of ideas and thoughts are just as natural part of Laurin’s work as her more widely famous sculptures. Her sketches invite the viewers into her own personal universe.
Beth told me about a workshop held on Iceland 1981, with mostly Scandinavian artists, but also from Europe and the US. There she got a strange sense of unity and how things are attached. The Icelanders believe that nothing is magical or transcendental, everything elevated is natural. Through a new friendship with the American artist Philip Corner whom she met on Iceland, she was given the opportunity to travel to New York and meet more artists of the Fluxus movement.
Beth Laurin and her mother, the pianist Anita Harrison went to Fylkingen for the first time in 1950, and ever since she has participated in numerous events and shows there. It was at Fylkingen that she got to know Sten Hanson, and they followed each other’s careers over the years. Back in 2009 they met by chance at a subway station in Stockholm and Laurin said to Hanson – look out the window, there’s one of my drawings! Hanson grabbed her hands and replied: “It is a good thing that us oldies are still hanging in there”
Valter Syden, December 2019
16.11—07.12.2019
One work by each gallery artist, exhibition curated by intern Märta Öringe for gallery weekend Stockholm 16-17th of November. Exhibition runs until the 7th of December
Beth Laurin Bigert & Bergström Emma Bjurström Hilde Retzlaff Inez Jönsson Johanna Gustafsson Fürst John Duncan Julia Peirone Julius Göthlin Karl Norin Leif Elggren Miriam Bäckström Przemek Pyszczek Cohen & van Balen The Estate of Sten Hanson Timothy Crisp Timothy Wilson Ulla Wiggen Willem Andersson
16-17 November
Prolonged opening hours Saturday / Sunday 12-18.
We show one work of every artist, both new and classics curated by our wonderful intern Märta Öringe in the gallery. Most welcome!
12.10—02.11.2019
English below
Låt oss för att nå förståelse av begreppet entropi börja med vad det ordagrant betyder. Själva ordet kommer från grekiskan och är sammansatt av dels, ”en-” som är kortformen för energi, samt ”trope”som betyder förändring. Energiförändring.
Willem Andersson har i denna soloutställning tagit sikte för att undersöka entropin vidare. Ju lägre entropi någonting besitter, desto större ordning besitter dem. Om man exempelvis bygger ett hus, då skapas ordning av fragment som i det fallet är träplankor, vilka har hög entropi ensamma och kanske tjänar de heller inget syfte som sådana, men hopsnickrade formar de något nytt – då sjunker entropin och befinner sig i ett tillstånd av att vara lågt då tingen är ordnade.
Anderssons geometriska 3D skulpturer som dansar över gränsen till måleri avbildar en helhet vars fragment skapar totalen. Plywooden av trä har låg entropi och denna blir lägre när den hackas upp och sätts in i ett större sammanhang, ordningen blir än mer ordnad. Skulpturerna kan sägas ha ett släktskap med den brittiska konstnären Bridget Rileys d’oeuvre, och inriktningen Op Art (Optical Art) då de visuellt möter åskådaren med de abstrakta mönstren och fragmenten som blir en helhet.
Andersson talar om att kämpa emot universums o-ordning, att bjuda motstånd gentemot den riktning naturen rusar, genom att öka ordningen, vilket oftast postuleras som att jämvikt uppstår då entropin uppnått sitt maximala värde.När universum blivit ett totalt kaos, då är entropin så hög att entropifantaster talar om alltings upplösning. Varje gång det komplexa ges utrymme kämpar detta sålunda logiskt emot världsalltets upplösning – skulpturerna i all sin komplexitet påvisar att universum ännu inte uppnått entropins maximala värde.
Shou Sugi Ban kallas den japanska teknik med vilken man framställer eldresistent timmer och behandlar timret så att man förlänger dess livslängd. Paradoxalt nog utförs detta genom att förkolna ytskiktet. Andersson har använt tekniken som ytterligare en kommentar ”A case against entropy”. Vad händer när helhetens fragment förkolnas och stiger i entropi, men sedan hejdas för att ånyo sjunka och bli hårdare rustad mot o-ordningen, som exempelvis dess förstörelse och upplösande i atomer? Skulpturerna vittnar om denna paradoxala rörelse och process. Gåtfullheten hos materialen besitter en mångbottnad klang. Konstnären lurar naturen ja, kanhända självaste universums o-ordning genom detta.
Text av Valter Sydén
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In order to understand the term entropy, let us first begin with what it literally means. The word is derived from ancient Greek consisting of two words, “en-“ which is an abbreviation of the word energy, and “trope”, which translates as transformation. Ergo, transformation of Energy.
With this exhibition Willem Andersson seeks to further his examination of entropy. The lower the level of entropy anythingpossesses, the more structure and order. For example, when building a house, structure and order is formed by the fragments/parts that in this case are timber, which isolated possess high entropy not serving a purpose other than just being timber, yet fixed together they form a house, where the fragments in harmony form order leading to lower entropy.
Mr. Andersson’s sculptural work crosses into the realm of painting, and it depict this wholeentity whose fragments form a new total, utilizing geometric forms and 3D. Plywood exist in a low form of entropy being very structuralized and as it is chopped and put into a new grander context the entropy drops even more – structure and order deepens. One can argue these sculptures have a kinship with the British artist Bridget Riley’s d’oeuvre and Op Art (Optical Art) since they meet the beholder visually with abstract patterns and fragments that are part of a greater whole.
Andersson himself say he continues his manifestation against the disarray of the Universe, by actively resisting the chaotic urge and direction of it. It is often said that the universal entropy only can reach balance when it is at its highest. When so the chaotic direction of the universe is at its peak, followers of the entropy-philosophy predict the ending of everything. Each time complex things are formed, the low entropy of these counterweight Universe’s desire to chaos and high entropy. The sculptures in all their complexity shows there is still a long way for universal entropy to reach its maximum.
The Japanese technique Shou Sugi Ban is an ancient way of making wood and timber fire-resistant, also giving its surface pro-longed life. It is a paradox since this is achieved by charring the surface. Andersson has experimented with this technique as yet another comment in the case against entropy. What happens when the smaller parts of the bigger whole are charred, rising in entropy, but then instantly drops once again, sinking, getting stronger armor against chaotic disordered high levels of entropy, its utter ruin and dissolvement in atoms? The sculptures give testimony of this paradoxical movement and process. The enigmatic qualities within the material have a multifaceted ring to it. The artist outwits nature, perhaps even the chaotic fate of Universe.
Text by Valter Sydén
19.09—22.09.2019
Opening 16:00-19:00 at Belenius, Ulrikagatan 13
During the exhibition opening, author Aris Fioretos will present a brief reflection on the prosthesis.
Opening party at At Six, Brunkebergs torg 6
19:00-22.00, with a selection of previous projects by Bigert and Bergström
English below
I början av 1970-talet när vi gick i grundskolan fick vi lära oss att den då talrika nordafrikanska vita noshörningen var hotad då den börjat tjuvjagas i allt större utsträckning. Noshörningens horn troddes ha magiska krafter för den manliga potensen och såldes på den svarta marknaden till framförallt Asien. Trots upptäckten av sildenafil, den aktiva substansen i Viagra, vilket godkändes som behandling för erektil dysfunktion 1998, fortsatte man att slakta noshörningar för deras åtråvärda horn. Och 20 år senare, våren 2018, avled den sista vita manliga nordafrikanska noshörningen i vilt tillstånd. Sudan som han hette, hade då skyddats dygnet runt i tre år av beväpnade vakter för att inte falla offer för tjuvjägare. När han till slut somnade in sörjdes han av främst av sin dotter Najin och barnbarnet Fatu, de två sista honorna av denna art.
Idag har den nordafrikanska noshörningen fått sällskap av en mängd andra djur och organismer som drabbats av de ”antro-obscena” krafter vi själva genererat. Vi talar nu om det sjätte massutdöendet vilket hotar att lämna oss ensamma med våra älskade hundar och katter i en framtid bestående av urbana värmeöar i en översvämmad värld. Enligt IPBES senaste rapport, FN:s vetenskapliga expertpanel för biologisk mångfald, hotas nu upp till 1 miljon arter av jordens 8 miljoner arter av utrotning.
Vår skulptur Protes är en avgjutning av ett horn från en vit nordafrikansk noshörning från Naturhistoriska riksmuseet. Det gjordes ursprungligen till vårt projekt Klimatkamrarna 1994 där Ångkammaren huserar en noshörning. Muterad till en maskin pumpar den ånga ur olika kroppsöppningar vilket skapar ett tropiskt klimat. Men då noshörningens kropp är tillverkad i järn så förtärs den sakta av rost.
I gallerirummets mitt finns nu bara det polerade hornet kvar. Den glänsande metallen får representera både framsteg och förlust – både teknisk landvinning och bortkapat liv. När läkaren Pär-Ingvar Brånemark i början av 1950-talet av en slump upptäckte att levande benvävnad inte stötte bort metallen titan, så var det under ett experiment där han byggt ett titanfönster för att kunna titta in i benet på en levande kanin. En makaber bild av hur människans nyfikenhet leder till nya och oväntade upptäckter som gagnar livet självt.
Djuren har länge tjänat som ”stand-ins” för människor när det gäller medicinska försök, likt proteser för vår egen fantomsmärta. Och ironiskt nog är det just sådana experiment som lett fram till att det nu finns lite hopp för den nordafrikanska vita noshörningens återuppståndelse. I dagarna läser vi att sju ägg från de två överlevande honorna Najin och Fatu nu befruktats i ett laboratorium i Italien där man bevarat nedfryst sperma från andra bortgångna vita noshörningshannar. Frågan kvarstår dock vilka sydafrikanska vita noshörningshonor som vill ställa upp som surrogatmammor för de biologiska mödrar som inte kan bli dräktiga eller bära foster på egen hand.
Vi har tidigare föreslagit att monument borde uppföras för att uppmärksamma utrotningshotade naturelement som glaciärer. Verket Protes kan ses som en utveckling av detta resonemang där utsatta delar av vårt gemensamma biologiska arv placeras i fokus – eller som en kritisk aktion mot den process av tilltagande biologisk enfald som just nu sprider sig mitt ibland oss.
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In primary school in the early 1970s, we learned that the northern white rhino – then quite numerous – was threatened by increasing poaching. Rhino horns were thought to have magical powers for male virility, and they were sold on the black market, mainly to Asia. Despite the discovery of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, which was approved for treatment of erectile dysfunction in 1998, rhinos continued to be slaughtered for their coveted horns. Twenty years later, in spring 2018, the last male northern white rhino in the wild died. Sudan, as he was called, had been surrounded by armed guards round-the-clock for three years to protect him from poachers. When at last he was put down after months of failing health, he left behind his daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu, the last two females of the species.
Today the northern white rhino has been joined by a number of other animals and organisms suffering from the “anthro-obscene” forces we humans have set in motion. We are now talking about the sixth mass extinction, which threatens to leave us alone with our beloved dogs and cats in a future consisting of small islands of urbanity in a largely submerged world. According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), up to 1 million of the Earth’s 8 million species are threatened with extinction.
Our sculpture Prosthesis is a cast of a horn from a northern white rhino, preserved at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. It was originally made for our Climate Chambers project in 1994, where the Steam Chamber housed a rhino. Mutated into a machine, it pumps out steam through various orifices in its body, creating a tropical climate. But, as the rhino’s body is made of iron, it is gradually consumed by rust.
In the centre of the gallery space, nothing but the polished horn remains. The shining metal represents both progress and loss – technological gains and extinguished lives. During an experiment in 1952, Doctor Pär-Ingvar Brånemark discovered by chance that living bone tissue didn’t reject titanium. He had built a titanium window in the bone of a live rabbit to observe what happened inside it. A macabre image of how human curiosity leads to new, unexpected discoveries that benefit life itself.
Animals have long served as stand-ins for humans in medical trials, like prostheses for our own phantom pain. And ironically, such experiments have now led to a glimmer of hope for the northern white rhino’s resurrection. Just recently, we read that seven eggs from the two surviving females, Najin and Fatu, have been fertilised in a laboratory in Italy, which had frozen samples of sperm from other, now deceased, male white rhinos. The question remains which southern white rhino females will serve as surrogates for the biological mothers who cannot carry the foetuses themselves.
We have previously proposed that monuments should be erected to commemorate endangered natural phenomena like glaciers. Prosthesis can be viewed as a further development of this reasoning, shining a spotlight on vulnerable parts of our common biological heritage – or as a critical action against the approaching Bio-Singularity.
Bigert & Bergström, September 2019
Image caption Jean-Baptiste Béranger
08.06—07.07.2019
In this exhibition Pyszczek strives to further his investigation of abstract landscapes. He bought an old school in a small village in Poland called Drzeniów, a few kilometres away from the German border, and moved there in 2018. He started to observe and document the surroundings, especially manmade objects such as a metal fences and other architectural elements. The location is laden with heavy forested areas, and as such the forest industry is vital for the villages in this area. A majority of the inhabitants get their livelihood from the industry, but human involvement also comes with a backside – smoke and pollution.
On the edge of the nearest city, there is a factory that manufactures OSB, laminate flooring, and other processed wood products using the wood that comes from the surrounding forests. The large reliefs in the show are made out of laminate material from the local forests, which have been cut down and then processed in the factory. The wood gain new life, yet consisting of processed parts. The smaller sculptures are made out of raw wood, stumps and such and they also gain new life via the sculptural process of the artist – and yet present a more natural feeling. Why is it that objects consisting of the same materials, but coming from different steps in the industrial process present different moods with the viewer?
I come to think of Christian Boltanski in his investigation of the reconstruction of the past. Old photographs of smiling teens just before the second world war is presented much later when with certainty their smiles are long gone. With fragments of something that once was, a new object can be produced utilizing the old. This duality is classical, and yet ever blooming. A tree or forests are symbols that we find in all religions and ideologies that stand for something eternal and old. What have these trees seen over the decades? Bonsai is the technique of creating a miniature tree that looks old and yet is planted in a small pot. Here man have intervened with nature, and up-rooted the tree from its natural habitat and planted it somewhere else. Pyszczeks’s works strives to overbridge this duality. In the words of Pyszczek himself – this is what the investigation of the abstract landscape really is.
Valter Sydén, June 2019
11.05—01.06.2019
Inez Jönsson’s new work can be concluded as being pictograms symbolizing Nordic minimalism in its true essence. The colours stems from what can be found in the Swedish forest and the symbolic language testifies to a unity where the fragments in themselves doesn’t need to be an entity, but together they create minimalism. The parts thus make up something bigger. There is a line connecting her to the Arte povera movement. In that spirit the materials are cheap or for free, without minimizing the value of the art.
Jönsson studies limits. Painting, handicraft and technique are tied together to form a window towards the elevated. The purism in her work required an inner journey. The windows are opened and we can see what is outside – but also inside. There is a nod in the weaves towards Emma Kunz, especially since they invites the existential self -scrutiny. In this exhibition Jönsson has worked with lines, as limits and its opposite. Two black fields are separated by a line, in the middle. The perfectionist in her wants to make the line completely straight, but the challenge is in leaving it un-straight. The eye can stills ee what it does to the whole picture. There is something deeply human in not using tape to form the lines, but letting the artist’s hand create a line that is perceived straighter when being organic (in the middle of the colours and materials from nature).
Through this, painting has opened new possibilities for Jönsson. The new black works contain everything that a painting traditionally has, but she doesn’t call them paintings. The treads made by flax don’t create a weave together, but rather a linen canvas, being a painting without being painted. The frames are made in pine and breaths heavily of the connection to Swedish craft tradition and history. As fancy as ebony is, the local tradition has an allure, in this age of climate change. Simplicity gives new life to what can be found everywhere in sheds, on the fields, country houses and the countryside. The materials are re-shaped and reborn with a Nordic minimalism, a richness of species in all its simplicity, inspired by Linné.
Valter Sydén April 2019
10.04—14.04.2019
Dick Hedlund (SE)
Oskar Korsár (SE)
Jone Kvie (NO)
Maria Lassnig (AT)
Jeanette Mundt (US)
Tobias Pils (AT)
Bunny Rogers (US)
Magnus Thierfelder (SE)
Charlotte Walentin (SE)
Ulla Wiggen (SE)
Michael Williams (US)
Presented by Belenius, Johan Berggren Gallery, Elastic Gallery
In collaboration with Société, Berlin, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and Capitain Petzel, Berlin
11.4 / 17:00-20:00
12.4 / 13:00-19:00
13.4 / 12:00-17:00
14.4 / 12:00-17:00
@Spritmuseum, Djurgårdsvägen 38 – 40
For the second consecutive year, three galleries arrange the group show Monopol at Spritmuseum during Stockholm Art Week.
Monopol was initiated 2013 as an alternative to the fair as an exhibition form, and is based on a collaboration between the galleries, who curate the group show together, exhibiting both the artists they represent alongside invited international artists. Monopol takes generosity as a point of departure and the exhibition grows from a close dialogue. The exhibition has a free entrance all days and all are welcome to visit Spritmuseum and view works from many generations and countries.
13.04—23.06.2019
At Six, Brunkebergstorg 6
With a touchdown in art history Bjurström initiates a dialogue with the early modernists. The circle is a recurring theme through her work. It’s a universal symbol for rebirth and the eternal. Bjurström uses them as an attempt to make an ending, to complete the works as they are carefully painted last in the process. The essence of the circle has fascinated humans from Aristotle until today; a perfect circle or a sphere is almost impossible to create. She initiates a Socratic dialectic, and in the same way as in her previous exhibition, the viewer is faced with a contorted mimesis, as if bent out of shape. But; it’s not up to the viewer to judge with what kind of force Bjurström’s brushstrokes are to play. It is rather her figuration of the painterly ambition, that in a democratic way reflect the circular order that in a convincing way decide the theme for this sequence.
Bjurström’s paintings testifies to how the old masters gaze can be re-interpreted, re-evalued and brought to new life. Details of themes from Manet, Zorn and Singer Sargent are picked up and thrown into a tumble dryer and fall out re-interpreted. Without putting too much emphasis on the viewers’ spatial affairs their wisdom can still be seen in the 21stcentury. In this an art historical congeniality appears, emphasized by the circular symbolic, in itself containing what has been and what will be – a break from the old to merge modernity with abstract utopia. The divination that has not been uttered comes near the melting point in Bjurström’s painting. She is a testament that real recognize real, when she merges extremes.
Valter Sydén