Light installation event, February 26 at 9-11pm (21:00-23:00), 2009
We are pleased to announce multimedia artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff’s first one man show at Gallery Niklas Belenius. Since the end of the 70s, Hausswolff has worked as a conceptual visual artist working with performance art, light- and sound installations and photography and as a composer and musician.His work has been show in the biennials in Venice (2001, 2003, 2005), in Istanbul (1997), in Johannesburg (1997), documenta X and his work was critics favourites in ArtForum (2003, 2004, 2005). His music has been released by labels such as Touch, Laton, RasterNoton, Sub Rosa, Firework, Oral and feld. As a musician his concert in London in 2006 was selected “best of the year” by The Guardian.
His interest in architecture, topography and urban situations has also resulted in the films “Hashima, Japan 2002” and “Al Qasr, Bahriyah Oasis, Egypt, 2005” made in collaboration with film maker Thomas Nordanstad. Their new film will be screened February 28 and is called “Electra, Texas 2008”.
Hausswolff’s visual works deals mainly with photography, video and combinations of audio/visual matterst. His “Red” series using red lights in various architectural misfittings has shown a rather critical side of his works. In Santa Fé (SITE Santa Fé biennial 1999) an abandoned cemetery was lit up in the nighttime by 20 000 watts (Red Night, 1999); in Liverpool (Liverpool biennial) the river Mersey was treated (Red Mersey, 2004) and in Chiangmai, Zagreb, Rijeka, Kaliningrad and Chicago abandoned houses around the cities was lighted up and photographed (Red Empty, 2003-2006). His most recent red works include Red Sea Saw for the Luxembourg Cultural Capital 2007 and Red Cochineal in Mexico showed at Museo de la Ciudad in Santiago de Queretaro 2007.
The exhibition is separated in three parts. First it’s a light installation event at the Jewish cemetery on February 26 at 9-11pm. On February 27 a group show opened in the gallery. Hausswolff is in the show as well as the curator for it – it is also a solo show! The day on the 28 it’s a screening of Carl Michael von Hausswolff´s and Thomas Nordanstad film Electra, Texas in cinema Zita.
TU EST L’AUTRE, Groupshow at Gallery Niklas Belenius, February 27 at 4-9pm (16:00-21:00)
In this show there are seven works by seven artists, including one anonymous. Six of the artists have no idea of that they’re a part of this – they don’t even know that I consider their works to be works of fine art. Five of the artists have passed away. The title “Tu est l’autre” stems from the famous line “Je est un autre”, stated in a letter written by Arthur Rimbaud in 1871. As I understand it, this quotation deals with Rimbaud’s view on his work – that his writings seems to come from somebody else … something else … and that he is just some tool used by this unknown parasitic existence. I have taken his line and extended it to address this “someone else” – someone like you, perhaps – or someone similar to these fantastic people that I have forced into the world of contemporary art!
(with Thomas Nordanstad), Screening at Zita, February 28 at 12am (12:00), 2009
With our film, Electra, Texas 2008, we are completing a cycle of three individual films that we now recognize are more realated than we had first intended. Shot in the north of Texas close to the Red River, in a long, panoramic shots and edited with a slow, bluesy soundtrack, it follows “Hashima, Japan, 2002” and “Al Qasr, Bahriyah Oasis, Egypt 2005” both in form and structure. Electra is a small, sleepy town with an almost deserted town center, yet around it the pumpjacks are bringing up the last remaing drops of black gold in the area. The procedure is the same as in the heydays, before the depression, when more than 5000 wells and pumpjacks going up and down could be seen in the fields. We believe that there is a beauty in just watching life take place. We try to let the time in the scenes we shoot act as a metaphor for time passing also in the viewers contemplation, and we hope to make these kind of “documentary films” as tributes to the people who were and still are creating these societies.
