S.O.S. Titanic
press release
S.O.S. Titanic is the title of Danish artist Kristoffer
Akselbo’s first solo show at the gallery. The title functions as subtle
frame of reference for the exhibited sculptures and the installation in
the gallery’s large space. In the smaller space, Kristoffer Akselbo
presents a series of photographs.
The largest wall of the
gallery is being cut up from inside as the visitor approaches it. It is
cut up in intervals, spelling the Morse code for ”art” – a code which
is visually close to ”S.O.S”. On one of the gallery’s tables is the
piece Maltstrom: a glass of whisky containing a powerful maelstrom. And in the middle of the floor is a piedestal with the piece Perfume Telescope.
The visitor has to bend down and look through a couple of perfume
bottles and their boxes. A hidden lens functions as a telescope and
frames the piece Always. This piece is a smashed Coca Cola can, placed in the window sill and frosen like a small iceberg.
Akselbo
often takes his point of departure in everyday objects and works with a
kind of poetics of everyday life. Seamlessly and apparently
miracuously, all the objects completely change character and function
in this exhibition. They become something else. A can becomes an
iceberg, a drink a maelstrom, perfume bottles telescope. Always
refers to Coca Cola’s slogan but also to the encapsulation in ice which
preserves the can always. A preservation of the most famous product of
our time that symbolizes the economical system of the west better than
anything else. Besides this, the act of drinking Coca Cola is connected
to going to cinemas - which illustrates Akselbo’s use of movie
references.
In
this show it is the blockbuster movie and the
story of Titanic with its dramatic narration of decadence and failed
visions that surrounds the sculptures and the installation. The
telescope, the iceberg, the ship that is cut up, the women’s scents
and the men's drinks all form a small narrative. Movies are our common
cultural reference – and Akselbo transforms the objects and narrations
of movies to objects of reality. His works are made for our everyday
lives which is why they are placed in the gallery’s furniture and the
window sill.
The practice of extending the space of movies to
include everyday objects and give them sculptural qualities, also
functions the other way around: By taking point of departure in
everyday objects and seeing them as art pieces. The concept is the
same. This is how the photographic series works in the smaller space of
the gallery. ”I thought I saw an Olafur Eliasson but it was just a
reflection in my Lou Reed cover” is one of the titles of the
photographs.
Kristoffer Akselbo (b. 1974) recently graduated
from the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. He has this year produced
a commissioned piece for the Danish Cultural Ministry, exhibited at
Kunstverein Schloss in Plön in Germany and solo at the academy’s
exhibition space. During the exhibition period, the gallery will show
more works by Kristoffer Akselbo at Art Copenhagen.
The exhibition has been supported by The Danish Art Council
