Kirstine Roepstorff
31 Jan - 21 Jun 2009
KIRSTINE ROEPSTORFF
31 January – 21 June 2009
MUSAC to open first major exhibition in Spain for Danish artist Kirstine Roepstorff on January 31
Title: The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer
Artist: Kirstine Roepstorff (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1972)
Curators: Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Agustín Pérez Rubio
Coordinator: Helena López Camacho
Venue: Halls 3.1 and 3.2
Dates: 31 January – 21 June 2009
MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, is to host the first major exhibition in Spain for Danish artist Kirstine Roepstorff. Under the title The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer, the show brings together over 50 works produced between 2005 and 2008 in a range of formats (collage, painting, sculpture and mixed media), in an attempt to provide an overview of the artist’s prolific production. Roepstorff explores a range of techniques, but finds a common root in the use of collage as the starting point of her creative process. Alongside her more widely acclaimed works, MUSAC presents the artist’s most recent production, including the installation Quiet Theatre (2008), produced in collaboration with Copenhagen’s U-TURN Quadrienial for Contemporary Art. The piece brings a new approach to collage techniques, placing them within a theatrical and performative context.
The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer is the title of Kirstine Roepstorff’s first solo show in Spain, hosted by MUSAC and showing a range of works that differ in material from collage to mechanical theatre. The manifold topics of the visually mesmerising and yet politically engaging collages in this exhibit all merge in the spectacle of a mechanical theatre, Quiet Theatre. The latter can also be described as both a linguistic and physical sculpture.
The title of the exhibit, The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer, focuses on the question of how inner universes (individual worldviews) fit into, and emerge out of other, outer universes or worldviews. This concern evolves from a fundamental urge in Roepstorff’s work to explore how to contain the presence of infinity, the unknown as an individual; how to navigate through several forces of political influence, desire, melancholy and love. The title can also be understood in terms of this being an exhibition tracking down an artist’s abstract voicing of how her mind makes sense and non-sense of contemporary belief systems and media stories versus her own. Adding another dimension to the title, the piece All possible Experiences, (2006), which previously has been part of an installation by a similar title, The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer, this work might capture one overall idea behind the show; how an inner universe (voice, sound) encompasses the many outer ones.
As the Dada collages by Hanna Höch of the early 20th century, Roepstorff’s collages transform media narratives and images in a blend with other profane materials into critical tales on the contemporary political world order and its defeats. The collages in both artists’ cases allow the viewer to gaze through a window (the collage) to see how reality both optimistically could look in the future as well as to how reality has come to look today from a genuine feminist perspective. Thus the ability to implode past, presence and future as well as to allegorically connect the everyday materials as experiences with the universal is a characteristic for these two artistic positions divided by almost a century.
It has been said about Kirstine Roepstorff that her artistic oeuvre can be captured as a “One Woman Revolution” and in many ways this artist does have her own mission in the world, which is dedicated to the visual re-negotiation and ‘balancing’ of existing power relations. If the collage already in the last century marked the beginning of deconstruction and appropriation in art, Roepstorff’s work sparks this tradition even further as she wittily, yet deadly serious in her critique, joggles with metaphors of capitalism, progress, loss, excess and eventually the desire of (re-)defining the order of things in her rich series of collages.
In The Inner Sound That Kills the Outer, a major representation of these collage series, will be on display in MUSAC in a carefully selected constellation. The visitor will encounter the new series Deep Fall (2008), which includes collages that host male figures in devious action inside a wilderness of stems and bushes. The greenery is a recurrent theme in Roepstorff’s work, which she describes as the “in between” - an indispensable image of humans’ lifelong challenge of navigation-. On display is also the legendary series Rocks (referring to both jewellery and stone) in which the artist alters material hierarchies and value in a skilful symbolic language; and Mystic Harbour, which portrays progressing ships going nowhere as a metaphor of global economical growth and its failed circuits. As a socio-political commentary to the ambitious striving for ever more education and progress (reading the news) she has teased a run of front pages of the Herald Tribune, Where the World Wander – the Road to Excelsior (2006).
Throughout her collage work (including many hours spent gluing in the studio) Roepstorff has repeatedly referred to and applied a cast of imaginative, however visually real characters. The Moment Man, Stop Lady, The Eel of Unfortune and Balance are all part of the cast and in spite of their seemingly individual characters, they embody one ongoing and intrinsic discourse in the work generated by the artist. Now lately in her new endeavour of ‘leaving’ twodimensional collages for three-dimensional theatre, she states that this move has liberated the content of her collage work in space – hence we are now arriving at the mechanical theatre, Quiet Theatre.
Quiet Theatre, 2008
In the theatre installation, Quiet Theatre (2008), which is permanently running in the exhibit, the word ‘quiet’ refers to the fact that there is no live acting on stage although it is a theatre. On stage is, instead, a 4.5 meters tall mechanical sculpture, skilfully lit, generating a strong audiovisual experience representing the previously mentioned characters from the collages. Acting in cohesion with the moving sculpture is an audio drama between two voices named “Image” and “Space”. The dialogue entangles one discursive position fond of defining his surroundings, Image, and one ever so enthusiastically dissolving definitions (of love, of naming, of matter), Space. Of the script written by Kirstine Roepstorff, it has been said:
“The most fascinating thing about Kirstine’s writing is that she uses language like a sculptor; her words are physical: they conjure sensation, settle in the mind as corporeal experience”, Lost In Translation, Patricia Ellis, 2008
“Stop Lady! Stop your galloping illusions” or “Think the way of water” and the mere 3D sensation of the sound-scape are examples of this. The rest has to be experienced.
The run of “Quite Theatre” takes 36 minutes, and at MUSAC the public will hear a dubbed version of the English-language original.
Kirstine Ropestorff: the book
MUSAC will be launching the fist major book devoted to Kirstine Roepstorff’s work alongside her exhibition at the museum. Jointly edited by Swiss publishing house JR Ringier, the book will review her entire career, with 150 illustrations backing up texts and essays by a number of contributors. Andreas Schlaegel, Angela Rosenberg and Patricia Ellis will approach the artist’s work from a historical/analytical perspective, while exhibition curators Solvej Helveg Oyesen and Agustín Pérez Rubio will delve into her thoughts and creative processes in the course of a light-hearted interview.
Stille Teater TIMETABLE
SPANISH VERSION:
From Tuesday to Friday: 10.15; 11.15; 12.15; 13.15; 17.15; 18.15; 19.15 h.
Weekends and Holidays: 12.15; 13.15; 14.15; 18.15; 19.15; 20.15 h.
ENGLISH VERSION
From Tuesday to Friday: 14.15 h.
Weekends and Holidays: 11.15; 17.15 h.
31 January – 21 June 2009
MUSAC to open first major exhibition in Spain for Danish artist Kirstine Roepstorff on January 31
Title: The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer
Artist: Kirstine Roepstorff (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1972)
Curators: Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Agustín Pérez Rubio
Coordinator: Helena López Camacho
Venue: Halls 3.1 and 3.2
Dates: 31 January – 21 June 2009
MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, is to host the first major exhibition in Spain for Danish artist Kirstine Roepstorff. Under the title The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer, the show brings together over 50 works produced between 2005 and 2008 in a range of formats (collage, painting, sculpture and mixed media), in an attempt to provide an overview of the artist’s prolific production. Roepstorff explores a range of techniques, but finds a common root in the use of collage as the starting point of her creative process. Alongside her more widely acclaimed works, MUSAC presents the artist’s most recent production, including the installation Quiet Theatre (2008), produced in collaboration with Copenhagen’s U-TURN Quadrienial for Contemporary Art. The piece brings a new approach to collage techniques, placing them within a theatrical and performative context.
The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer is the title of Kirstine Roepstorff’s first solo show in Spain, hosted by MUSAC and showing a range of works that differ in material from collage to mechanical theatre. The manifold topics of the visually mesmerising and yet politically engaging collages in this exhibit all merge in the spectacle of a mechanical theatre, Quiet Theatre. The latter can also be described as both a linguistic and physical sculpture.
The title of the exhibit, The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer, focuses on the question of how inner universes (individual worldviews) fit into, and emerge out of other, outer universes or worldviews. This concern evolves from a fundamental urge in Roepstorff’s work to explore how to contain the presence of infinity, the unknown as an individual; how to navigate through several forces of political influence, desire, melancholy and love. The title can also be understood in terms of this being an exhibition tracking down an artist’s abstract voicing of how her mind makes sense and non-sense of contemporary belief systems and media stories versus her own. Adding another dimension to the title, the piece All possible Experiences, (2006), which previously has been part of an installation by a similar title, The Inner Sound that Kills the Outer, this work might capture one overall idea behind the show; how an inner universe (voice, sound) encompasses the many outer ones.
As the Dada collages by Hanna Höch of the early 20th century, Roepstorff’s collages transform media narratives and images in a blend with other profane materials into critical tales on the contemporary political world order and its defeats. The collages in both artists’ cases allow the viewer to gaze through a window (the collage) to see how reality both optimistically could look in the future as well as to how reality has come to look today from a genuine feminist perspective. Thus the ability to implode past, presence and future as well as to allegorically connect the everyday materials as experiences with the universal is a characteristic for these two artistic positions divided by almost a century.
It has been said about Kirstine Roepstorff that her artistic oeuvre can be captured as a “One Woman Revolution” and in many ways this artist does have her own mission in the world, which is dedicated to the visual re-negotiation and ‘balancing’ of existing power relations. If the collage already in the last century marked the beginning of deconstruction and appropriation in art, Roepstorff’s work sparks this tradition even further as she wittily, yet deadly serious in her critique, joggles with metaphors of capitalism, progress, loss, excess and eventually the desire of (re-)defining the order of things in her rich series of collages.
In The Inner Sound That Kills the Outer, a major representation of these collage series, will be on display in MUSAC in a carefully selected constellation. The visitor will encounter the new series Deep Fall (2008), which includes collages that host male figures in devious action inside a wilderness of stems and bushes. The greenery is a recurrent theme in Roepstorff’s work, which she describes as the “in between” - an indispensable image of humans’ lifelong challenge of navigation-. On display is also the legendary series Rocks (referring to both jewellery and stone) in which the artist alters material hierarchies and value in a skilful symbolic language; and Mystic Harbour, which portrays progressing ships going nowhere as a metaphor of global economical growth and its failed circuits. As a socio-political commentary to the ambitious striving for ever more education and progress (reading the news) she has teased a run of front pages of the Herald Tribune, Where the World Wander – the Road to Excelsior (2006).
Throughout her collage work (including many hours spent gluing in the studio) Roepstorff has repeatedly referred to and applied a cast of imaginative, however visually real characters. The Moment Man, Stop Lady, The Eel of Unfortune and Balance are all part of the cast and in spite of their seemingly individual characters, they embody one ongoing and intrinsic discourse in the work generated by the artist. Now lately in her new endeavour of ‘leaving’ twodimensional collages for three-dimensional theatre, she states that this move has liberated the content of her collage work in space – hence we are now arriving at the mechanical theatre, Quiet Theatre.
Quiet Theatre, 2008
In the theatre installation, Quiet Theatre (2008), which is permanently running in the exhibit, the word ‘quiet’ refers to the fact that there is no live acting on stage although it is a theatre. On stage is, instead, a 4.5 meters tall mechanical sculpture, skilfully lit, generating a strong audiovisual experience representing the previously mentioned characters from the collages. Acting in cohesion with the moving sculpture is an audio drama between two voices named “Image” and “Space”. The dialogue entangles one discursive position fond of defining his surroundings, Image, and one ever so enthusiastically dissolving definitions (of love, of naming, of matter), Space. Of the script written by Kirstine Roepstorff, it has been said:
“The most fascinating thing about Kirstine’s writing is that she uses language like a sculptor; her words are physical: they conjure sensation, settle in the mind as corporeal experience”, Lost In Translation, Patricia Ellis, 2008
“Stop Lady! Stop your galloping illusions” or “Think the way of water” and the mere 3D sensation of the sound-scape are examples of this. The rest has to be experienced.
The run of “Quite Theatre” takes 36 minutes, and at MUSAC the public will hear a dubbed version of the English-language original.
Kirstine Ropestorff: the book
MUSAC will be launching the fist major book devoted to Kirstine Roepstorff’s work alongside her exhibition at the museum. Jointly edited by Swiss publishing house JR Ringier, the book will review her entire career, with 150 illustrations backing up texts and essays by a number of contributors. Andreas Schlaegel, Angela Rosenberg and Patricia Ellis will approach the artist’s work from a historical/analytical perspective, while exhibition curators Solvej Helveg Oyesen and Agustín Pérez Rubio will delve into her thoughts and creative processes in the course of a light-hearted interview.
Stille Teater TIMETABLE
SPANISH VERSION:
From Tuesday to Friday: 10.15; 11.15; 12.15; 13.15; 17.15; 18.15; 19.15 h.
Weekends and Holidays: 12.15; 13.15; 14.15; 18.15; 19.15; 20.15 h.
ENGLISH VERSION
From Tuesday to Friday: 14.15 h.
Weekends and Holidays: 11.15; 17.15 h.