Insecure Scaffolds

About

Insecure Scaffolds pivots around the idea of a line. A line is an innumerable and incalculable thing. A turn of phrase, time, history, definition, a border. By default a line suggests a limit, and therefore proposes what is beyond this line, the unquantified as well as the known and the owned. Within art history a line, a gesture, and a mark has particular resonance and is, of course something to be broken, deregulated, squandered and effaced. A line takes us from A to B, we break this line, we go back, we loop, we behave against the line - and sometimes we follow it. Psychology, territory, the architectonic and storytelling feed back, in and around the idea of a line. We are bound to it, whilst we move away from it.

A selection of works by five international artists explore some of these ideas;

Mladen Stilinović’s Oduzimanje nula / Subtraction of Zeros, 1993, consists of small A6 sized panels that progress through a systematic subtraction of nil values. Each small panel goes through the mathematical motions, yet its value remains constant at nothing, even while each zero is carefully subtracted. The piece brings us to a standstill, provides a pause, and acts as an antithesis to the dominant conviction of progress through continuous growth.

Meriç Algün Ringborg’s Destination series has its roots in a study of certain countries’ customs and duty regulations. Inherently limiting, the list of personal items allowed by travellers to cross the border without declaration seems random, anachronistic and at times absurd. Destination (Brazil), 2014 consists of various found items including a clarinet, a Lonely Planet Guide, a typewriter, an analogue camera and a film canister amongst other objects that have been placed on the floor to form a closed border. These objects depict perhaps an ideal and ‘safe’ traveller, conjured up by the Brazilian bureaucratic system, who appears to belong to the pre-digital age, pointing not just to the absurdity of a country’s laws defining what personal belongings can be, but also how out of touch bureaucracy often is.

Falke Pisano’s practice looks into the production of meaning and knowledge. In a discursive manner, a tracing and a mapping takes place, often using diagrammatic drawings to highlight moments where a shift occurs, that changes the way the body and mind is affected by the systems that we inhabit. Pisano’s oeuvre stretches from video works such as Chillida (Forms and Feelings) - a personal inquiry into a series of photographs taken by the photographer David Finn of sculptures by the Basque sculptor Chillida - to larger research projects such as The Body in Crisis, an ongoing project looking into moments of crises throughout history. These are expressed through a variety of mediums including video, sculpture and print. On view will be a series of prints and object based works.

Knut Henrik Henriksen’s Eyeliner is an architectonic intervention that is subtle and grandiose at the same time. With a simple gesture Henriksen brings our attention to the architecture of a space by drawing a line around set features, such as a wall, in a colour reminiscent of makeup. The line can be repeated and is a work that has delineated different spaces including art fair stands - where the line brings into view the intentionally invisible structure, often inherent in spaces created for showing and selling art. Eyeliner can be transposed and has no end and no beginning, occupying spaces of commerce, the domestic and also the imagination.

A series of drawings by Jumana Emil Abboud titled Studies for a Landscape, (2005 to present) take as their starting point Palestinian folk and fairy tales. Before radio these stories served as entertainment but also offered warnings, advice, therapy and opportunities for bonding, fantasy and rebellion. Tales could incorporate improvisation, melding the individual with the collective. Crucially these cultural texts were not written down but learned by heart, passed on generationally. Abboud is interested in the ways personal and collective history is told and retold through cultural ritual or practice and how it informs contemporary life.

Recent and forthcoming shows for the artists include:

Mladen Stilinović: solo shows MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico, 2015, Pain, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris, France, 2014 & Mladen Stilinović, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, Austria, 2014. Jumana Emil Abboud: All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale cu- rated by Okwui Enwezor and previously included in the Istanbul Biennial, the Bahrain National Museum, Manama, the Institute du Monde Arabe. Meriç Algün Ringborg: All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale curated by Okwui Enwezor, Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will, 5th Thessaloniki Biennial and forthcoming Where do we migrate to?, Värmlands Museum, Karlstad. Falke Pisano: Solo show at Red Cat, Los Angeles. Future shows include a solo show at Hollybush Gardens, 2015. She is the winner of the Prix de Rome, 2013. Knut Henrik Henriksen: Kunstverein Arnsberg, adorsTw A eNw celprStuu, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin, 2014 and Notes to Stones, Bergen City Hall. A major survey publication will be published by Koenig books featuring essays by Lars Bang Larson and Amy Sherlock December 2015.