Systemics #4: Aarhus Rapport – Avantgarde as network (or, the politics of the ultralocal)
27 September–31 December 2014
Kunsthal Aarhus
J.M. Mørks Gade 13
8000 Denmark
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 10–17h,
Wednesday 10–21h, Saturday–Sunday 12–17h
Free admission
www.kunsthalaarhus.dk
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“Aller à l’ universel par l’ultralocal / Only from the ultralocal can one arrive at the universal.”
—Michel de Montaigne according to Salvador Dalí
Curated by Joasia Krysa and Lars Bang Larsen
Kunsthal Aarhus presents the fourth and concluding exhibition in its SYSTEMICS SERIES 2013–2014.
The exhibition takes as its point of departure the book Århus Rapport 1961–1969. Documenting experimental art in Aarhus in the sixties, the book is a catalogue of performances, happenings, poetry readings, new music, public art works and exhibitions that took place all over the city. It gives evidence
of extraordinary and international activity at a time during which Aarhus was arguably the central
focus for contemporary art in Denmark.
It was Salvador Dalí who attributed to Michel de Montaigne the formula “Aller à l’ universel par l’ultralocal”; only from the ultralocal can one arrive at the universal. The “politics of the ultralocal” in the exhibition’s title refers to a time when contemporary art—or the avantgarde—was networked in a different way than through the digital networks of today.
Through newly commissioned works, a group of contemporary artists respond to the original Århus Rapport and its spirit of unruly experimentation. The book appears in the exhibition as an archive, but also as a pretext or a script containing certain suggestions—regarding methods, motifs, formal vocabularies, social energies, historical narratives—through which the present may be approached and the future retrieved. In this spirit, the exhibition offers historical documentation and art works, newly commissioned projects, screenings, and remakes from the sixties.
Artists include, among others, Eric Andersen, Antipyrine, Dave Hullfish Bailey, Glenn Christian, Johannes Christoffersen, Sture Johannesson, Kirsten Justesen, Jakob Jakobsen, Museum of Ordure, Poul Pedersen, Lea Porsager, C.F. Reuterswärd, William Louis Sørensen, Ferdinand Ahm Krag, Ou Ning/Bishan Commune, New Media, Lasse Krog Møller and Show-Bix &.
The project has been initiated by Lars Bang Larsen and Joasia Krysa, and further developed with the curatorial collective consisting of Geoff Cox, Marianne Ping Huang, Anne Kølbæk Iversen, Mathias Kokholm, Jacob Lund, Lea Porsager, and Morten Søndergaard.
Seminar: Avantgarde as Network
27 September, 10am–16.30pm
Convened by Marianne Ping Huang, with speakers including Lars Bang Larsen, Jacob Lund, Sanja Perovic, Tania Ørum, and artists and curators participating in the exhibition.
Press contact: communications [at] kunsthal.dk
