Kris Lemsalu & Kyp Malone: Going Going

Eccentric shamanism and poetic fragility are some of the things the audience has in store when Kris Lemsalu and Kyp Malone transform Den Frie’s underground exhibition space into the total installation Going Going.

Estonian artist Kris Lemsalu and American singer and multi-instrumentalist Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio) together create installations and performances using sculpture, ceramics, video, music and sound. They first worked together in 2017, creating the work Going Going for the performance biennial Performa in New York. At Den Frie, they present a new and modified version of this major work. On the opening day, the work will be activated as a durational performance, and subsequently it will stand as a total installation.

Going Going is a tribute (and a ritual farewell) to the artist couple’s close friend Philly Abe—a colourful performer and artist from New York, who passed away in 2018. The work is characteristic of the duo’s practice, which with equal parts of madness, poetry and humour reflects on life and death, rebirth and parting.

Kris Lemsalu’s artistic practice consists primarily of sculpture and performance. Often in a wonderful union of surreal fantasy worlds that partly stand as complete installations and at the same time frame her performances. With the interconnection of media, the practice of traditional crafts and the use of ceramics, she also points back to the Arts and Crafts movement which Den Frie descends from. In a strange way, Lemsalu seems to have a lot in common with Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art’s creator J.F. Willumsen, who also worked with ceramic reliefs with intense colour combinations and with a focus on theatrical elements and the big questions of life.

Kyp Malone is a multidisciplinary artist working across medias such as painting, drawing, video and sound. He is also known as the singer and musician of the Brooklyn-based indie band TV On the Radio. Malone has performed all over the world, including Roskilde Festival in 2004 and 2011. Additionally, Malone has released solo albums under the artist name Rain Machine, worked extensively with the band Ice Balloons and most recently with the improv group Bent Arcana.

The exhibition is supported by Dansk Tennis Fond, the Danish Arts Foundation, Det Obelske Famliefond, Copenhagen Municipality, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond and 15. Juni Fonden.