A Waxy Pith exhibition.
20 APRIL – 04 MAY 2012
OPENING: 20 APRIL | 18-22H
Presenting STIAN ÅDLANDSVIK
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
The Waxy Pith exhibition Greasy Lace is Stian Ådlandsvik’s first solo presentation in Belgium, for which he is presenting new works in the perfectly formed premises of Hunting and Collecting in downtown Brussels. Within the solid concept that defines the artist’s quest to explore all the stages in the history of production, are to be found sculptures, photographic documentation, and works of a more hybrid nature, all of which reveal certain moments within the entire process of creation whereby the elements duly employed in the making of each have become salvaged and reinterpreted (though without any of the works ever shedding their deeply embedded wit). Some of the individual pieces have developed as offshoots of their prior state, others as palimpsests; in each case, their physicality blatantly reveals the various iterations or treatment to which they have been submitted; these are autonomous, essentially honest entities whose scars signify their stature.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Inherent in the oeuvre of Stian Ådlandsvik is a yearning to understand products and materials. He unveils the different layers in his own production, emphasising the process of making the work and the different stages of their development. They are often reorganised hybrids in which the constituent parts derive from precise origins via connections that have been explored and dissected, made discernable through the unveiling of a certain logic or thought process.
Objects are evaluated and re-contextualised in the form of drawings, photographs and sculptures. They are parts of interconnected systems, consisting of a large number of components that are interrelated and interdependent, referring to transnational and transcontinental trade and production systems, but also to relationships beyond both these and the context prescribed by the exhibition space.
Ådlandsvik links his reference systems together, oscillating between obvious, plausible; and opaque, mysterious components. Their different states, which are documented by the artist and incorporated in his work, range from the utilisable object to deconstructed machines that can barely still function and abstract objects whose traces, notched in the material, tell of a utilisation context in another era.
The imperfect surfaces in his work suggest a wish for a new materialistic language wherein its reading not only leans on art history, but on a more direct way of understanding material as being the end product of human handling, where surface imperfections are there for a reason and thus also have a meaning. It appears as though Ådlandsvik is suggesting a new ideal for estimating the value of objects through knowledge of their past. His works are effectively an investigation into how value is ascribed to products, and how concealments might very well prove to lend worth to dubious content, or to no content at all.
Through these various layers of production Stian Ådlandsvik unveils the previous contexts, applications and understandings of the materials he employs. He thus overturns any former sense of convention and habit, and gives new meaning to what we had thought to be normal and ordinary. As a non-violent reaction to the status quo, reality is re-interpreted in a quest to see deeper into who and what surrounds us.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Hunting and Collecting | 17 Rue des Chartreux | 1000 Brussels | Belgium
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –