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Museum for fremtiden: ‘Beyond Today ́s Gaze’, a conversation between visual artist Ferdinand Ahm Krag and curator Anders Thrue Djurslev (in Danish)
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Museum of the Future: Beyond the Gaze of the Contemporary. Artist Talk with Ferdinand Ahm Krag.
Visual artist and Professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Ferdinand Ahm Krag talks about his artistic practice and his installation Hall of Pscyhopomps in Museum of the Future in conversation with dramaturg, curator and PhD scholar Anders Thrue Djurslev.
The space is lit by a single light source. Beneath it, a flat surface presents a red powdered incense. Spread out in tracks, the incense forms a maze-like skull. When lit, the track works like a clock for the nose: certain lengths constitute different units for measuring time, registered through smell. On the walls around the clock and the light source, the spectator discovers a swarm of faces, drawn in black and white. The faces covering the walls of Ferdinand Ahm Krag’s installation Hall of Psychopomps are not immediately recognizable. They are at once made out of and woven into fossil sediments of extinct species, dim landscapes from unknown places, historical icons from cultures past, and visions of futures to come. Presented in a variety of sizes and scales, the faces share the common feature of being in the middle of a mysterious transformation, drawing together human, animal, and landscape within past, present, and future.
Ferdinand Ahm Krag’s installation Hall of Pscyhopomps (2022) is one of three original artworks presented in Museum of the Future. In this conversation with the exhibition’s curator and dramaturg Anders Thrue Djurslev, Krag talks about the creation of the installation, drawing inspiration from the cave paintings, science, and speculative philosophy. Furthermore, Krag will answer how he has experienced being staged as part of a performance, as in the dramatized exhibition Museum of the Future.
“I envision my installation of faces as an extension of the cave paintings. I would like to create a similarly elastic experience of space where your distance to the motives is unclear. […] It is amazing how it animates consciousness and points to a deep mystery: Why the hell did they do it? […] What happened when they stepped into the cave and did this work, created the first museum? […] They became someone else.” – Ferdinand Ahm Krag
The artist talk is a part of a series of dialogues held in Kunsthal Aarhus about futurity in contemporary art, supported by the Danish Arts Council.
Museum of the Future is a co-production between Kunsthal Aarhus, Sort/Hvid and Aarhus Teater, opening in Kunsthal Aarhus on August 31-September 24, 2022. The exhibition is experienced in small groups every day, beginning on 3 pm, 4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm and 7 pm with the duration of one hour. Tickets are available through Aarhus Teater at aarhusteater.dk.