News

exhibition: KREV consulate, Museo de la Ciudad, Queretaro, Mexico (with Leif Elggren)
5/11 – 30/11 2010

exhibition and concert: Darker Then Night, Casino Metropolitano, Mexico City, Mexico
28/10 – 12/12 2010

concert: Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival, Lausanne, Switzerland 20/10
exhibition: ARTifariti, Tifariti, West Sahara
16/10 – 30/10 2010

theatre music: Jag är en annan (I am another) by Michael Azar
premiere at Angered Theatre, Göreborg, Sweden 15/10 2010

concert: Chromatologies, Rotherham, United Kingdom 24/9 2010

concert: Dis-patch Festival, Serbia 9/10 2010

exhibition: The Night Pleases Us, October Salon, Belgrade, Serbia (with Thomas Nordanstad)
6/10 – 9/11 2010

exhibition: Ekaterinburg Industrial Biennial for Contemporary Art, Russia
9/9 – 10/10 2010

exhibition: Svensk Konceptkonst (Swedish Conceptual Art), Kalmar Art Museum, Kalmar, Sweden
4/9 – 14/11 2010

6 May – 30 May 2010
Opening 6 May 5-8pm

Galleri Niklas Belenius is pleased to present Carl Michael von Hausswolff´s second solo exhibition at the gallery.

For the past several years Hausswolff has continued to explore the possibility of exposing different architectural and topographical settings with red light. The exhibition brings together five photographs from his Red series.

By photographing different settings using high-voltage red light, the image itself, or rather the subject of it, emanates from the means by which it is conveyed. The subject in question becomes transformed by its color bath into a real-world monochrome. The image thus becomes a painting in its own right through the monochromatic use of color where the transformative power of light and dark creates a painterly texture and nuance. The monochromatic surface also becomes an examination of changing values across the surface suggesting that repetition can in fact never produce the same meaning.

Even though the photographs offer no reference other than the viewer´s own, Hausswolff´s work is always rooted in a special relationship with the place itself. Red Dawn (2009) is portraying the ruins of German military leader Hermann Goering´s hunting lodge in the Kaliningrad area, Russia, (formerly Königsberg, Eastern Prussia). Through the forest the ruins of the former lodge is barely discernable, as the structure has slowly been erased by nature. By rewriting the history of a particular site brought to life with the color red, the image itself questions history´s disturbing sense of permanency. The overall tone is that of positive reflection on the ephemeral nature of existence and absence but one that never exceeds into nostalgia.

In one of the other recent photographs in the series, Red Cochineal (2007) several Nopal cacti are illuminated in the Mexican countryside. Here the almost invisible female shield louse, the cochineal, works as the extended narrative of the picture. The insect is used to produce Crimson dye; a strong, bright, deep red color that was particularly sought after in Central America in the 15th century by the Spaniards for coloring fabrics. The parasite became an important export product during the colonial period and contributed to the enslavement of the indigenous population by the colonialists.

The picture is the resulting encounter between something that is transient in its contingency, yet charged with its own inherent history.

In addition, the newly published book RED (1999-2010) is released in conjunction with the exhibition and includes all red works in the photographic and installation series by Hausswolff, as well as a text written by Daniel Birnbaum.

Red Dawn (Krajna Lesnje 2009) # 4, c-print, 2009
GALLERI NIKLAS BELENIUS
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RED NIGHT II

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.

Adoptations

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!

Electra/Texas

(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.

Hashima, Japan 2002 – the film by cmvh and Thomas Nordanstad is being installed at CCA Kitakyushu Project Gallery, Japan between July 28 and September 12 2008.

Teleport Färgfabriken at Färgfabriken Norr, Östersund, Sweden

CMVH is co-curating, with Färgfabriken director Jan Åman, the premier exhibition in a new space in Östersund, Sweden: Färgfabriken Norr. Show opens April 3 and celebrated guests include Carsten Höller, J.G. Thirlwell, Miriam Bäckström, Andreas Angelidakis, Carsten Nicolai, Dave Falconer/Russell Haswell, Manu Luksch, Tobias Rehberger, Leif Elggren, Jan Håfström, Anita Gordh, Armin Linke, Finnbogi Petursson, Jana Winderen, Jacob Kirkegaard, Miltos Manetas, Mathias Johansson, Mai Ueda, Michael Esposito, Nanna Hellberg, Nico Dockx, Nathalie Djurberg, Peter Geschwind and others – art works also included by: Selmer Nilsen, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Maurizio Cattelan, Erik Håfström, John Duncan, Cory Archangel, Ernst Billgren, Heavy Industries, Liz Cohen, Ola Pehrson, Emanuel Swedenborg, Marcel Duchamp, William S Burroughs and the Military Gang.

H2O, St. Petersburg | September 2008

cmvh is participating in the group show H2O in St Petersburg opening September 1 2008. His sound piece “Life In Prison By A Beautiful River Makes The Sky Dark” will be installed at the Peter and Paul Fortress curated by Anna Bitkina.

New CD Release

The brand new cmvh double CD called “Perhaps I Arrive – Music for Atatürk Airport, Istanbul” is released by aufabwegen in Cologne, Germany.

CD1 contains one 60 min piece rejected by the airport authorities and CD2 contains four tracks that was installed and played in the transit hall during the Istanbul Biennial 1997. Get it from: http://geraeuschwelten.de/catalog/
Published by Touch Music, London.

Teleport Färgfabriken at Färgfabriken Norr, Östersund, Sweden

cmvh is co-curating, with Färgfabriken director Jan Åman, the premier exhibition in a new space in Östersund, Sweden: Färgfabriken Norr. Show opens April 3 and celebrated guests include Carsten Höller, J.G. Thirlwell, Miriam Bäckström, Andreas Angelidakis, Carsten Nicolai, Dave Falconer/Russell Haswell, Manu Luksch, Tobias Rehberger, Leif Elggren, Jan Håfström, Anita Gordh, Armin Linke, Finnbogi Petursson, Jana Winderen, Jacob Kirkegaard, Miltos Manetas, Mathias Johansson, Mai Ueda, Michael Esposito, Nanna Hellberg, Nico Dockx, Nathalie Djurberg, Peter Geschwind and others – art works also included by: Selmer Nilsen, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Maurizio Cattelan, Erik Håfström, John Duncan, Cory Archangel, Ernst Billgren, Heavy Industries, Liz Cohen, Ola Pehrson, Emanuel Swedenborg, Marcel Duchamp, William S Burroughs and the Military Gang.

Elgaland-Vargaland Exhibition
CMvH opens, with Leif Elggren, jan Håfström and Marja-Leena Silanpää, an Elgaland-Vargaland exhibition at Galleri Niklas Belenius, Stockholm to celebrate the annexation Isola di San Michele, Venice. Show opens February 16 2008.

Tänd Mörkret
CMvH will show the Phauss piece Alger-Lagos 1983, a DVD with sound and b/w stills, in the show Tänd Mörkret at Millesgården, Stockholm – show opens January 20.

Visionaire
CMvH is participating with a sound piece in the new issue of the New York based magazine Visionaire (#53 sound).