GARDAR EIDE EINARSSON

About

Gardar Eide Einarsson's work incorporates acts of appropriation and the re-contextualization of imagery and information. He adopts and endows elements of cultural ephemera with a political charge, attempting to transform various materials into signifiers of dissent. His sources range from book cover graphics, mail-order catalogues, police instruction manuals, everyday objects and institutional architecture. The new exhibition will feature a sculptural installation made from oil drums and sand bags as well as a series of new paintings in acrylic on canvas where each finished painting has been silkscreened over with an image of a tarpaulin.

Tarps, oil drums and sandbags, (like duct tape and plywood), are the materials of a world of favelas, a planet of slums - enjoying a rich life repurposed from their original use, appropriated and re-contextualized as the ad hoc materials of DIY construction and destruction.

Tarps as a material of underground, illicit architecture. Tarps used to cover something in order to shield and protect it - but also to hide it from view. Silkscreened over paintings they cover the painting from view - shielding, protecting and withdrawing (bailing out an art that has become too big to fail) ' erecting shelter.

Oil drums and sandbags are assembled as the empty, explosive-less husk of a vertical flame mine, (according to the instructions from Marine Corp Field Manual Nr. 3-11, "Flame, Riot Control Agents, and Herbicide Operations"). They become devoid of their actual explosive potential, inhabiting instead a sculptural and symbolic place.

Troubled Asset Relief Program - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

Gardar Eide Einarsson, 2014

Gardar Eide Einarsson (b. 1976, Oslo) currently lives and works in Tokyo. He received his education from the National Academy of Fine Art, Bergen, 1996-00; Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunste, Städelschule, Frankfurt, 1999-00 and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York City, 2001-03.

Recent solo exhibitions include Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, 2013; The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, 2009; Kunstverein Frankfurt, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, 2007.

Upcoming and recent group shows include New Ways of Doing Nothing, Kunsthalle Wien (upcoming); The Crime Was Almost Perfect travelling from Witte De With, Rotterdam to PAC Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan (upcoming) and El Teatro Del Mundo/The Theatre of the World, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (upcoming); Take Liberty, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; The Disappearance of the Fireflies, Prison Sainte Anne, Avignon; Moderna Museet Collection/Unpainted Paintings, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2014; Lies about Painting, Moderna Museet, Malmö, 2013; To be with art is all we ask, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, 2012; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, 2011; Sydney Biennial, Sydney, 2010; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Vigo and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2009; Whitney Biennial 2008, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, 2008; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, 2007 and 9th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul and Populism, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2005.

His works are in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (LA MoCA); Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Jumex collection, Mexico City; Malmö Art Museum, Malmö; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo and the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo.

Upcoming monographs include Gardar Eide Einarsson The Mess, Karma, New York and Gardar Eide Einarsson Stainless Steel/Fluorescent Pink, Rat Hole Books, Tokyo.