2020

08.05.2020–24.06.2020

Det Jyske Kunstakademi

Every spring, Kunsthal Aarhus presents the annual MFA degree show, exhibiting works by the artists graduating from the Jutland Art Academy. For visitors, this is a special opportunity to explore what is going on in the burgeoning, professional art scene. This year, the degree show is strongly affected by the worldwide COVID-19 crisis. The crisis has shut down most of the country, including its educational institutions, museums and art galleries. Responding to this situation, the degree show has been radically reinvented – it is no longer a traditional exhibition held in the lower galleries of Kunsthal Aarhus as usual; instead, the works can be safely viewed by the public in the venue’s windows and on the outer walls inside its courtyard.

The exhibition has been given the title 2020. An apt title for a year that has already become far more than a number; 2020 has become a mood. Changeability and new formats have become the hallmarks of this exhibition, just as they have come to typify the spring of 2020.

The seven graduating students will each exhibit their works separately for six days. Beginning on 8 May 2020 and for the next seven weeks, every Friday will see a new exhibition presented at Kunsthal Aarhus. The seven exhibitions will comprise a wide range of media: from paintings to video works to installations.

With this exhibition, Kunsthal Aarhus gives the graduating artists professional input on their work as well as an institutional platform in which to show their art. For many of the artists, this constitutes their first encounter with the logic and structure of an art institution, and in turn they prompt us to view these structures with fresh eyes. At Kunsthal Aarhus, we regard this as a special privilege: having the opportunity to present the degree show and collaborate with new artists who are taking the next step in their professional endeavours.

The exhibition is accompanied by two other new initiatives never before seen at these degree shows: the graduating artists have created a special supplement to be published in the newspaper Århus Stiftstidende, and will also have the opportunity to take over the website www.kunsthalaarhus.dk. The special supplement contains a conversation between the students and the public debater and radio host Ayşe Dudu Tepe as well as identikit/composite sketches of the students' works. Every week, the home page of the Kunsthall's website is taken over by one of the seven graduates, presenting additional works that chime in with those found at Kunsthal Aarhus.

Read the supplement from Århus Stiftstidende here

The exhibition is curated by Anna Weile Kjær.

Part 1. Luna Lund Jensen

In the video work Jeg er en kniv i din strube, jeg er sværdet ved din side, jeg er tænderne omkring dig (2020), Luna Lund Jensen’s drawn animations appear before us, enacting snippets of action detached from their wider context

In the video work Jeg er en kniv i din strube, jeg er sværdet ved din side, jeg er tænderne omkring dig (2020), Luna Lund Jensen’s drawn animations appear before us, enacting snippets of action detached from their wider context , all shown up against an empty, white background. Drawn on the basis of found video footage, the animations show foxes interacting with humans. The moving images are accompanied by a medieval-sounding piece of music. The lyrics of the song give us a fox’s perspective on situations that alternate between luring in others and being lured, between desire and a wish to inflict violence on man. In working with this footage and music, Lund Jensen has taken her point of departure in ancient folk tales from Asia and Europe about foxes that transform into humans in order to attain power and sheer vitality. Like small poetic statements, her videos and ballad evoke humankind’s desire to personalise and anthropomorphise nature. Regardless of whether this involves imagining foxes whose greatest desire is to become human, or simply the notion that a human being can be friends with a fox.

Text and animation: Luna Lund Jensen
Composition and vocal: Nina Møller Jørgensen

Exhibition period: 08.05.–13.05.2020

Location of the work

Part 2. Frederik Rønde Sørensen

Frederik Rønde Sørensen’s canvases are often imbued with a silence so deep it almost shouts out to you. They have the appearance of exercises seeking to determine just how narrow and restricted the concept behind a painting can be. The paintings oscillate in a state of constant negotiation

Frederik Rønde Sørensen’s canvases are often imbued with a silence so deep it almost shouts out to you. They have the appearance of exercises seeking to determine just how narrow and restricted the concept behind a painting can be. The paintings oscillate in a state of constant negotiation between figuration and a resistance to that very phenomenon, infusing them with an element of dry wit. Time and again, intimations of figuration are destroyed in favour of abstraction through an insistent purging of details, colour, lines and planes. Paradoxically, the persistent control of the subject results in the paintings ultimately having to allow pure chance and randomness entry. At the end of the day, new and unexpected figurations arise as the human brain finds new forms in its search for patterns within this abstract minimalism.

For 2020, Rønde Sørensen has placed his paintings in unfamiliar surroundings. In the courtyard of Kunsthal Aarhus, he has installed his paintings in a niche, directly onto the concrete walls. Contrasted up against the sky above and the open spaces around them, his chosen formats appear small and homely. With this disjunction of scale, he creates a new space poised between inside and outside, private and public.

Exhibition period: 15.05.–20.05.2020

Location and titles

Part 3. Eliyah Mesayer

In recent years, Eliyah Mesayer has created a nation called Illiyeen;

In recent years, Eliyah Mesayer has created a nation called Illiyeen; a nation for the stateless, for the chosen ones and for those who would like to be citizens there. New exhibition opportunities give Mesayer a chance to expand the nation’s infrastructure. For 2020, she has created 50 uniforms, each of them neatly wrapped up in linen and each with an individual poem attached. The uniforms were sent from the nation of Illiyeen to Kunsthal Aarhus, from where they were to be delivered to 50 new citizens. When the COVID-19 pandemic closed down the art venue, it was no longer possible to deliver the uniforms to new citizens, but Mesayer chose to use this change in circumstances to develop a postal service for Illiyeen. The 50 uniforms will now be exhibited in a sculptural formation in the Kunsthal Aarhus glass cube before being sent back to the nation on the final day of the exhibition. The nation’s recall of the uniforms will be posted on the Kunsthal Aarhus website.

When working with the nation of Illiyeen, Mesayer incorporates all visual modes of expression as part of her art. Here, this applies to everything from the design of the uniforms, the way they are packaged, the individualised poems and the nation’s letter of recall right to tiny details such as the stamp, which depicts a bird dying after having undertaken the immeasurable journey from reality to Illiyeen’s fictional location. Mesayer works so deeply and earnestly with narrative and the construction of truths that her work is forever poised on the threshold between reality and fiction, hardcore realism and phantom, fact and imagination.

Location

Exhibition period: 22.05.–27.05.2020

Part 4. Max Gam Iversen

For 2020, Max Gam Iversen has created pictures of nature that comprise a series of landscape paintings as well as a ready-made sculpture. The subject matter of the paintings comes across as fluid and blurred

For 2020, Max Gam Iversen has created pictures of nature that comprise a series of landscape paintings as well as a ready-made sculpture. The subject matter of the paintings comes across as fluid and blurred . The images emerge out of a process where Gam Iversen repeatedly paints landscape paintings using thin layers of paint that are briefly allowed to fill the canvas before being washed off, only to be repainted in a repetitive, compulsive sequence of events. Thus, each painting consists of countless landscapes. The remnants of paint settle as vague markings on the canvas, giving them a matte, dusty surface. They become dreamlike; visions that cannot be conclusively captured.

The ready-made sculpture consists of an accumulation of mannequin dolls wearing ghillie suits, also known as bush suits. The mass-produced camouflage suits look clumsy and artificial, yet are paradoxically a method used by mankind to merge with and disappear in the wild, whether for the purposes of bird watching, hunting or military action. The costumes constitute a comical, artificial way of blending in with nature. For a while, they confer upon the wearer the ability to become invisible, allowing them to hide and sneak up on other beings who would long since have fled if they had been aware of your presence. The repetitive washing, the blurred motifs and the constructed camouflage all serve to point out the impossibility of capturing the sheer naturalness of nature in art. They show us how our idea of becoming one with nature is an ephemeral notion and an artificial concept.

Exhibition period: 29.05.–03.06.2020

Location of the works

Part 5. Martin Kogi

The exhibition by Martin Kogi is cancelled.

Part 6. Villiam Miklos Andersen

With Umsteigemöglichkeit, Villiam Miklos Andersen has created a work consisting of three main modules. The first element, and the one from which the others originate, is a book published for the exhibition.

With Umsteigemöglichkeit, Villiam Miklos Andersen has created a work consisting of three main modules. The first element, and the one from which the others originate, is a book published for the exhibition. The book contains an essay written by Andersen over the course of the last year, offering a description of the artist’s life, work, movements and observations, all merging into a single stream of consciousness. The format of the books allows them to be stacked on a pallet, turning them into a sculptural element. The second element of the work consists of paintings. Their subject matter is taken from the book, and like the books, their formats are a perfect fit for the standard EUR pallet system. In another parallel to the books, the paintings will be stacked, too, but they will also be hung on the glass façade of Kunsthal Aarhus by means of a suction cup mounting system developed for the exhibition by Andersen. The installation interacts with the venue’s outdoor aluminium furniture, establishing a relationship between interior and exterior realms. The third and final element is performative in nature and concerns the artist’s own presence. During the exhibition period, Andersen will live in a converted motorhome in the Kunsthal Aarhus courtyard. Here he will enter into dialogue with visitors and rearrange his exhibition as the week progresses.

All elements of Andersen’s practice are characterised by an interest in the logistical systems of post-industrial society. How personal and private spheres are interwoven with and shaped by systems created by economic logic. Specifically, the book’s narrative and the artist’s own life – which in recent years has involved shuttling between the cities of Europe – have been shaped by the experiences and opportunities of movement allowed by capitalism. Logistical, streamlining systems also shape Andersen’s works when they adopt formats that are ready to be packed and palleted. He depicts lived life in the midst of a vast network of systems and ever-optimising practicalities.

Exhibition period: 12.06.–17.06.2020

Location of the works

Part 7. M.B. Pedersen

Can crawling over a fence on your daily commute to or from your bus be an artistic act?

Can crawling over a fence on your daily commute to or from your bus be an artistic act? M.B. Pedersen has a keen interest in everyday actions. He conducts investigations of otherwise unremarkable events and objects with tremendous thoroughness, thereby making them appear both absurd and enlightening. In this final instalment of the 2020 MFA Degree Show, M.B. Pedersen exhibits the missing board from a fence he became obsessed with crawling over. Alongside the board, he exhibits a series of video works that repeat and build-up towards the act of jumping across this specific fence, as well as a ready-made sculpture. The sculpture is an information stand from a bus stop, set up in the courtyard of Kunsthal Aarhus and modified with information added by the artist. All of these objects are works of art in their own right, but they are also props used in fundamental reflections on what constitutes an artistic act and where the performative aspects enter the picture. In persistently repeating the same act and by creating objects, films and sculptures that all revolve around this specific action – jumping this particular fence – the act itself becomes ritualistic. By closely studying actions and objects that would generally be taken for granted, Pedersen creates a microcosm of significance. He does this with dry, subtle, at times almost deliberately undetectable wit.

Exhibition period: 19.06.–24.06.2020

Location of the works