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| Hannes Lárusson-Sequences 2011 |
| Hann og hún-Ég og þau / He and she-Me and them |
| 01. 04. 2011 - 01. 05. 2011 |
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Opens Friday 1st of April at 8 pm.
Hannes Larusson, honourary artist of Sequences festival.
A Honest Toast to Kling & Bang
I had my old camera mounted on a tripod, surrounded with necessary tools, a simple workbench, a chair, a hanger for cloak and hat and a bottle of wine within reach. I had decided to carve small cups/ladles, (holding about 50 ml volume of liquid), according to a preconceived shape. I would make one piece every hour for six hours a day for just over a week, i. e. from the first day to the last of the Sequences Festival 2011, 60 objects all together. One by one they would be mounted on the wall in four regular rows making up a piece about 160 x 100 cm in size. When each cup was finished I would baptize it by filling it with wine, toasting to myself, also knowing that your system benefits from a sip of good wine. I would then treat the wood with a blend of linseed oil and orange oil. Being an artist I decided to dip the handle of the object into a individually mixed monochromatic color, as expected, a different one every hour.
This work is a homage to Kling & Bang gallery in Reykjavik, a shelter for many artists over the years. The work is moreover a homage to the time conscious and self reflective approach of classic Conceptualism as well as to those faceless carvers and craftsmen that toil away in their corners, getting to be real masters of their craft, assuming the speed of the machine with no faulty strokes, - Gepetto comes to mind. - hoping that their Pinocchio will finally come to life.
Doing the same thing over and over again is fascinating. In repetition there is a fine line between refinement and stagnation, even oblivion and madness is lurking in the shadows. Nobody can say at the end of the week that in this case the artist didn't put honest labor in to his work.
Yes, I decided to put a face on the handle. I have observed that roughing out a face in as few cuts as possible is among the things that seem to make a real artist; if not a real face then a ghost's face of times past.
HANNES LÁRSSON has for years dealt with the connection between contemporary art and cultural heritage, the role and place of the artist in society and the connection between craftsmanship and ideology. Hannes Larusson is one of the major performing artist of Iceland, the impetus of visual discussion and the author of spectacular work where the ideology of art meets unpretentious views and traditional values.
Hannes´ installation Door to Door shown in the The Reykjavik Art Museum in 2002 is characteristic of this expressive form. The work intertwined design, text and
event. Other work include The Order of the Carrot www.theorderofthecarrot.com which was established in the fall of 2003, Take me on in the South Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Canada 2004, and most recently the performance based installation Ubu Roi meets Humpty Dumpty (in Iceland) which was shown in Kling & Bang gallery, Reykjavik http://this.is/klingogbang/archive_list.php?year=2006 in the spring 2006.
Presently Hannes is working on a huge and intricate project under the name Íslenski bærinn (The Old Icelandic Farm house). http://islenskibaerinn.com
For the Sequences Festival 2011 Hannes will make a new work to be installed in Kling and Bang gallery on Hverfisgata: He and She, I and Them. This work could be described as a performance oriented mixed media installation. The work will open Friday 1st of April and last for 10 days, or until Sunday 10th April.
The exhibition of the works remaining will be on display until 1st of May.
http://sequences.is/
Kling & Bang gallery
Hverfisgata 42
IS-101 Reykjavik
Iceland
1. April Opening/performance at 8 pm
2. April - 10.April open all days from 2-6 pm. Work in progress.
14. April-1.May open Thursday-Sunday from 2-6 pm. |
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Grandagarđur 20 - 101 Reykjavík
kob@this.is |
