Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Press Release, December 2018
REITER galleries, Leipzig is proud to present House of bone body of stone a solo show by Danish artist Dan Stockholm.
Fascinated by places and architecture with an innate historical significance and narrative tension, Dan Stockholm practices a “creative archaeology”, which includes field research and work with various findings. His recent work evolves from what he calls “performative process,” a method that turns the finished piece into a vessel which carries the story of its own making.
Stockholm uses sculpture as an interface, link, or passage through which places and bodies – across temporal as well as spatial distances – are set in relation to each other. Architecture is a frequent reference point of his work, as he centers on the conceptual fields of present and past, presence and absence, fleeting and enduring. Thus, objects which emerge in different temporal moments are concentrated. They begin to embody the analogy of the inscription of light traces in the photographic negative that maintain an indexical relationship to the past. It serves as sculptural containers fixing a presence like an imprint and so transposing the sculptural object into the present even when it is only a fleeting glimpse that materializes so enduringly in this way. Stockholm’s understanding of sculpture as a medium of storage and transmission, driven from his archaeological interest, is clarified in his work HOUSE.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “By Hand”, 2018 (Red clay, 25x16x12cm).
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “Untitled (Fragments, Damascus 2017)”, 2017 (Lambda print on diamond glass, 20x30cm). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
The process for HOUSE began in 2013 only days after his father’s death, when the artist in a three-day performative and almost ritual fashion methodically touched the exterior of his father’s entire house centimeter by centimeter. The process ends with Stockholm translating this act of touching into object form by producing a number of negative plaster casts of his hands. The casts are fixed by metal rods, which simultaneously offer protective anchorage and oppressive restriction. Metal scaffolding connects the floor and ceiling of the exhibition space and serve as displays for his organic plaster sculptures.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “Level (Blue mare, königs blau)”, 2018 (ink, glass, water, 100x200x0,8cm).
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“. Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
HOUSE is supplemented by the film Don’t think about death a filmed performative interaction where inhabitants of Damascus use a collection of architectural fragments of their city as tools to create drawings directly on the ground. Don’t think about death is made in collaboration with Syrian artist Nourhan Sondok. In spite of the dangers faced in Syria, Nourhan has been collecting architectural fragments from all over Damascus. The fragments are compiled from a wide spectrum of constructions: from 4000-year-old columns; to newly constructed buildings destroyed in the Syrian conflict. Stockholm and Sondok met on social media, and from behind their screens in Copenhagen and in Damascus, their correspondence also led to the work Untitled Fragments, Damascus 2017) a photo series and archive of images showing Nourhan’s hands handling the fragments used in Don’t think about death.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “Don’t think about death”, 2017 (Duration 17m15s), link to video. Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Also on view in the show is the interactive site specific glass work: Level (Blue Mare, Königsblau). Trapped between two panes of glass, colored ink changes its form and concentration according to the tilt of the exhibition space and the movement of the audience who are invited to walk on the glass.
Dan Stockholm “HOUSE”, 2016 (Dimensions variable, scaffolding, plaster casts, stainless steel, water, epoxy, video), link to video.
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “HOUSE (water object)”, 2016 (30x22x14cm).
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “HOUSE (plaster object)”, 2016.
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view).
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “Vessel 1”, 2018
(Plaster, epoxy, water, 22x25x25cm).
Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.
Dan Stockholm “House of bone body of stone“ (installation view). Photo: Falk Messerschmidt, Chih-chien wang.