 Gardar Eide Einarsson: untitled wall painting, 2003 dimensions variable Damien Deroubaix, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Jakob Kolding This exhibition is comprised of new work by three European artists who have not exhibited to any great extent in the US. Originally from Lille, Oslo and Copenhagen, respectively, all three are working outside of their nation of origin - Deroubaix and Kolding in Berlin, Einarsson in New York. This sets up a practice in which the artists are already transnational and, to an extent, culturally unmoored and aesthetically nomadic. In addition, the works in this exhibition - wall paintings, sculptures, photocollages - are principally text-based, communicating almost exclusively in their inherited "international" language of English. It would also be safe to say that their artworks foster a critique of contemporary social structures, particularly the pervasive status of U.S. policies. Zine culture, street posters, and low-grade reproductions provide the aesthetic base for the signage tactics used by these artists for their communications. The contents of their works are not coded, allowing any viewer to "get the message". Deroubaix's wall paintings, one of Karl Marx, the other of the word "Propaganda", are housed inside graphic design containments which make them exclamations from the walls themselves. An enthusiasm is referenced through the jagged edges of his large "thought bubbles". A wall painting by Einarsson reads simply "Fuck you, you asskising bastards. I despise you and your pathetic crap". Although the communication is direct, the status of the artist's relationship to this voice is left ambiguous and the textual presentation references the poetics of horror in the manner in which it has been physically rendered. Kolding's collages and posters contain sentiments such as "Contesting architecture and social space. Who uses the space? Who is excluded?". The possibility of resistant voices inside the white cube are brought to the fore in Kolding's works which have also largely been presented in the kinds of public spaces whose strategies of dominance his work questions. A large sculpture by Deroubaix, made in a workmanlike manner with wood, acrylic paint and screws, presents the song titles from Napalm Death's Scum album. The titles, divorced from their original context and floating in an architectural space, read against each other forming a kind of concrete poetry - "you suffer", "siege of power", "human garbage", "life?", "multinational corporation", "common energy". When Einarsson renders Uncle Sam in his ubiquitous stance, the addition of one word at the end of the usual phrase updates and clarifies the position of the current administration: "I Want You" "dead". Kolding's pieces. which connect the viewer to such text fragments as "Power relations in spatial forms", also provide for their pleasure in an elaborate, inventive and joyful exploration of graphic space. The works on display wear their positions on their sleeves like punks wear band badges. The intersection of urban studies, subcultural theory, skateboard culture, hardcore Punk and class relations form a causal matrix for invention that allows these artists to comment on the politics of quotidian existence from a position that is not rarefied or superfluous. They are very much working artists and their pieces reflect this idea of living and "speaking" in a working art world, not one solely for the manufacturing of elitist commodity productions. All three of these artists are exhibiting their work at Team for the first time. Although relatively unknown in the States, they have exhibited their works in galleries and museums throughout Europe for the past half-dozen years. We would like to thank the Danish Council for their support of Jakob Kolding's participation in this exhibition. Exhibition: 17 February - 02 April 2005 Gallery hours: Tue-Sat 10 am - 6 pm Team Gallery 527 West 26 Street USA-New York, NY 10001 Telephone +1 212 279 92 19 Fax +1 212 279 92 20 www.teamgal.com |
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