Sofia Hultén
01 Nov 2013 - 11 Jan 2014
SOFIA HULTEN
If You Never Did You Should
1 November 2013 - 11 January 2014
Konrad Fischer Galerie Berlin is pleased to announce the opening of the second solo-exhibition with new works by Sofia Hultén on Friday, November 1 between 6 pm and 9 pm.
The sculptural work of Swedish artist Sofia Hultén moves back and forth between order and chaos, construction and destruction, causality and contingency. Her new works put the world of things through a clearly defined yet seemingly absurd series of tests in order to reveal its potential of possible forms. Hultén repeatdely traces the materiality, the coming into being and the possible future states of her objects. As a precondition of her way of working one finds a rare empathy for every-day things, an effort to see every single thing in all aspects of its being and at the same time to imagine and create different states of being of the same thing by taking it on a journey through time and space.
In our exhibition ‘If you never did you should’ we will show new sculptures together with two new video works. The video work ‘Nonsequences’ swirls the causiality and sequences of actions. As an example we see the artist cleaning an apple, eating it and then dropping it into a dirty box before throwing the apple away in a plastic bag. All the parts of this story line are then scrambled. The nonsensical lines of events seem strangely funny but at the same time follow a rigid logic of possible new combinations of every isolated action. Seen from this perspective ‘Nonsequences’ is organized and structured by very similar principles as can be discerned in her new sculptures. In ‘Forking Paths’ Hultén uses industrial hooks and chains which hang from the ceiling like candelabra or oversized earrings. For each version of these hook-sculptures the single components have been assembled in a slightly different order. Now hanging themselves instead of supporting, the objects seem strangely unfamiliar and fallen out of time. Even the attempt to fully perceive and to comparatively describe these sculptures unmistakably brings to mind the over-complexity of these seemingly simple objects.
The video piece ‘Altered Fates’ shows the artist approaching a trash container, picking objects and altering them. We see Hultén working on a mattress, a piece of wood or two Styrofoam boards. All objects are more or less clearly manipulated and changed and then returned to the container. The physical conditions of the returned objects will keep changing – that much is certain, but they will change differently as their possible future states are now those which have been assigned to them by the artist’s touch.
Sofia Hultén was born in 1972 in Stockholm and lives and works in Berlin. Among others her works have been shown at the Langen Foundation in Neuss, at Kunstverein Nürnberg, and Künstlerhaus Bremen. Group shows include venues such as MoMa PS1 in New York, Kai 10/Athena Foundation in Düsseldorf, Ludwig Forum in Aachen. In 2011 she has received the Moderna Museets Vänners Skulpturpris. From December 6, 2013 until February 16, 2014 the Braunschweiger Kunstverein will host a solo-exhibition by Sofia Hultén.
If You Never Did You Should
1 November 2013 - 11 January 2014
Konrad Fischer Galerie Berlin is pleased to announce the opening of the second solo-exhibition with new works by Sofia Hultén on Friday, November 1 between 6 pm and 9 pm.
The sculptural work of Swedish artist Sofia Hultén moves back and forth between order and chaos, construction and destruction, causality and contingency. Her new works put the world of things through a clearly defined yet seemingly absurd series of tests in order to reveal its potential of possible forms. Hultén repeatdely traces the materiality, the coming into being and the possible future states of her objects. As a precondition of her way of working one finds a rare empathy for every-day things, an effort to see every single thing in all aspects of its being and at the same time to imagine and create different states of being of the same thing by taking it on a journey through time and space.
In our exhibition ‘If you never did you should’ we will show new sculptures together with two new video works. The video work ‘Nonsequences’ swirls the causiality and sequences of actions. As an example we see the artist cleaning an apple, eating it and then dropping it into a dirty box before throwing the apple away in a plastic bag. All the parts of this story line are then scrambled. The nonsensical lines of events seem strangely funny but at the same time follow a rigid logic of possible new combinations of every isolated action. Seen from this perspective ‘Nonsequences’ is organized and structured by very similar principles as can be discerned in her new sculptures. In ‘Forking Paths’ Hultén uses industrial hooks and chains which hang from the ceiling like candelabra or oversized earrings. For each version of these hook-sculptures the single components have been assembled in a slightly different order. Now hanging themselves instead of supporting, the objects seem strangely unfamiliar and fallen out of time. Even the attempt to fully perceive and to comparatively describe these sculptures unmistakably brings to mind the over-complexity of these seemingly simple objects.
The video piece ‘Altered Fates’ shows the artist approaching a trash container, picking objects and altering them. We see Hultén working on a mattress, a piece of wood or two Styrofoam boards. All objects are more or less clearly manipulated and changed and then returned to the container. The physical conditions of the returned objects will keep changing – that much is certain, but they will change differently as their possible future states are now those which have been assigned to them by the artist’s touch.
Sofia Hultén was born in 1972 in Stockholm and lives and works in Berlin. Among others her works have been shown at the Langen Foundation in Neuss, at Kunstverein Nürnberg, and Künstlerhaus Bremen. Group shows include venues such as MoMa PS1 in New York, Kai 10/Athena Foundation in Düsseldorf, Ludwig Forum in Aachen. In 2011 she has received the Moderna Museets Vänners Skulpturpris. From December 6, 2013 until February 16, 2014 the Braunschweiger Kunstverein will host a solo-exhibition by Sofia Hultén.