Ed Atkins
Live White Slime
28 Feb - 23 Aug 2020
Ed Atkins, Safe Conduct, 2016. Three channel video with sound. Kiasma, Finnish National Gallery. 9:05 min loop
Ed Atkins, Safe Conduct, 2016. Three channel video with sound. 9:05 min loop. Photo: Finnish National Gallery/Petri Virtanen
Ed Atkins, Samplers, 2020, machine-embroidered acoustic panels. Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, dépendance, and the artist. Photo: Finnish National Gallery/Petri Virtanen
Ed Atkins, Ninth Freedom (2020-ongoing), various in-flight security videos with sound. Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, dépendance, and the artist. Photo: Finnish National Gallery/Petri Virtanen
Ed Atkins, Still from Ninth Freedom (2020 - ongoing)
Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Dépendance, and the artist
Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Dépendance, and the artist
Ed Atkins, Still from Ninth Freedom (2020 - ongoing)
Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Dépendance, and the artist
Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Dépendance, and the artist
Ed Atkins, Safe Conduct, 2016, three channel HD film with 5.1 surround sound, Dimensions variable, 09:04, courtesy the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, Cabinet Gallery, London, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, Rome, Dépendance Gallery, Brussels
Ed Atkins, Safe Conduct, 2016. Three channel video with sound. 9:05 min loop. Photo: Finnish National Gallery/Petri Virtanen
Ed Atkins, Untitled, 2020. Laser engraving on plywood. Courtesy Cabinet, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, dépendance, and the artist. Photo: Finnish National Gallery/Petri Virtanen
Artist Ed Atkins. Photo: Kansallisgalleria/Finnish National Gallery / Petri Virtanen
Ed Atkins’ video works are fascinated by our relationship with contemporary technologies of representation and how they variously exceed or fail in their attempt to sufficiently capture us. His works employ both found and custom-made digital materials, united by music and anxiety.
As a parody of airport security displays, the multi-channel video work Safe Conduct, 2016 portrays security paranoia attempted pacified by an aesthetic of cartoon compliance and familiar cultural stock. Safe Conduct is a grimly comic dance animated to the mechanical mania of Ravel’s Bolero, an overly familiar piece of music that accompanies proceedings like a delirious theme tune.
Safe Conduct is a carousel of protocol, rendered bodies, abattoirs and metal detectors. The title conjures a parlance of specious administrative directives, and refers directly to an exceptional document that historically afforded protection to the carrier. It is also notably the title of the Russian poet Boris Pasternak’s fragmentary autobiography.
In addition to Safe Conduct, the exhibition will feature new works by Atkins.
Ed Atkins (b. 1982, Oxford, UK) lives and works in Copenhagen. He has displayed his work in solo exhibitions e.g. at Kunsthaus Bregenz, K21 Düsseldorf, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Stedelijk Museum, The Serpentine Gallery and MoMA PS1 as well as at the Venice Biennale; Lyon Biennial and Performa.
An anthology of his texts, ’A Primer for Cadavers’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2016, and an extensive artist’s monograph from Skira was released in 2017. An epic soliloquy, ‘Old Food’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2019. Atkins is currently working on his first feature film.
As a parody of airport security displays, the multi-channel video work Safe Conduct, 2016 portrays security paranoia attempted pacified by an aesthetic of cartoon compliance and familiar cultural stock. Safe Conduct is a grimly comic dance animated to the mechanical mania of Ravel’s Bolero, an overly familiar piece of music that accompanies proceedings like a delirious theme tune.
Safe Conduct is a carousel of protocol, rendered bodies, abattoirs and metal detectors. The title conjures a parlance of specious administrative directives, and refers directly to an exceptional document that historically afforded protection to the carrier. It is also notably the title of the Russian poet Boris Pasternak’s fragmentary autobiography.
In addition to Safe Conduct, the exhibition will feature new works by Atkins.
Ed Atkins (b. 1982, Oxford, UK) lives and works in Copenhagen. He has displayed his work in solo exhibitions e.g. at Kunsthaus Bregenz, K21 Düsseldorf, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Stedelijk Museum, The Serpentine Gallery and MoMA PS1 as well as at the Venice Biennale; Lyon Biennial and Performa.
An anthology of his texts, ’A Primer for Cadavers’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2016, and an extensive artist’s monograph from Skira was released in 2017. An epic soliloquy, ‘Old Food’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2019. Atkins is currently working on his first feature film.