Elmgreen & Dragset
07 May - 18 Jun 2011
ELMGREEN & DRAGSET
The Afterlife of the Mysterious Mr. B.
7 May - 18 June, 2011
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin is pleased to present «The Afterlife of the Mysterious Mr. B», Elmgreen & Dragset’s third solo exhibition at the gallery, opening May 7 and on view until June 18, 2011. Continuing the artists’ exploration of transforming spaces to create narratives open to multiple interpretations, the exhibition is comprised of three different rooms that depict various life stages of the fictional character «Mr. B»
First introduced at the 2009 Venice Biennale, Mr. B was featured in Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation entitled «The Collectors», which brought together the works of 24 artists and transformed the Danish and Nordic Pavilions into two collectors’ homes. One of the two homes housed Mr. B’s art collection of gay related art works in a domestic setting which could best be described as a mix of a Californian case study house and a film set for an Austin Powers movie. Before entering his hedonistic bachelor’s pad, visitors encountered Mr. B floating face down in his outdoor pool, his expensive watch and cigarettes glistening at the bottom.
«The Afterlife of the Mysterious Mr. B» expands upon the eerie death in Venice by showing parts of the story of Mr. B’s life and death. The first room evokes a bourgeois mansion with cold grey walls and crisp white classical molding, and it is completely bare except for an immense fireplace and a marble table with a matching mirror. Above the fireplace hangs an imposing formal portrait of a young boy in his school uniform. Inside the fireplace is a realistic looking figure depicting the same boy, frightened and huddled below his painted portrait. On the opposite side of the room a bouquet of dead flowers rests on the marble table, above which is a mirror with the ominous words «You will never see me again» scrawled in black.
The second room is a morgue consisting of sterile grey walls and rows of cold metal mortuary drawers. Only one of the drawers remains open with two stiff pale male feet jutting out – the dead body of Mr. B. While this scene shows Mr. B’s final fate, the others give us a look at key moments in his childhood. He exists only as a creation of the artists and as a character in the minds of viewers, his life lived through fabricated spaces frozen in time.
The final room shows the garage of a private house, with the garage door closed and shelves storing typical lower class tools and objects. A 1950s motor scooter is parked in the middle of the garage with a baby boy placed in a cardboard box strapped to the back seat. Visitors are left to wonder how the baby got there and what will become of him. This is the beginning of the character’s life story – open for new dramas to unfold and new endings to be concluded.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s exhibition «The One and the Many» will be on view from May 28 until September 25, 2011 at the former Submarine Wharf in Rotterdam’s harbor as part of an ongoing partnership between Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Port of Rotterdam.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s new performative public sculpture «It’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry» – commissioned by Sculpture International Rotterdam – will also be on view from May 28 and throughout the year.
Their work «Powerless Structures, Fig. 101» has been selected as the winner of the Fourth Plinth Commission in London’s Trafalgar Square, to be unveiled in 2012.
Michael Elmgreen is born at Copenhaguen, Danmark ; Ingar Dragset is born at Trondheim, Norway.
They live and work in Berlin, Germany
The Afterlife of the Mysterious Mr. B.
7 May - 18 June, 2011
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin is pleased to present «The Afterlife of the Mysterious Mr. B», Elmgreen & Dragset’s third solo exhibition at the gallery, opening May 7 and on view until June 18, 2011. Continuing the artists’ exploration of transforming spaces to create narratives open to multiple interpretations, the exhibition is comprised of three different rooms that depict various life stages of the fictional character «Mr. B»
First introduced at the 2009 Venice Biennale, Mr. B was featured in Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation entitled «The Collectors», which brought together the works of 24 artists and transformed the Danish and Nordic Pavilions into two collectors’ homes. One of the two homes housed Mr. B’s art collection of gay related art works in a domestic setting which could best be described as a mix of a Californian case study house and a film set for an Austin Powers movie. Before entering his hedonistic bachelor’s pad, visitors encountered Mr. B floating face down in his outdoor pool, his expensive watch and cigarettes glistening at the bottom.
«The Afterlife of the Mysterious Mr. B» expands upon the eerie death in Venice by showing parts of the story of Mr. B’s life and death. The first room evokes a bourgeois mansion with cold grey walls and crisp white classical molding, and it is completely bare except for an immense fireplace and a marble table with a matching mirror. Above the fireplace hangs an imposing formal portrait of a young boy in his school uniform. Inside the fireplace is a realistic looking figure depicting the same boy, frightened and huddled below his painted portrait. On the opposite side of the room a bouquet of dead flowers rests on the marble table, above which is a mirror with the ominous words «You will never see me again» scrawled in black.
The second room is a morgue consisting of sterile grey walls and rows of cold metal mortuary drawers. Only one of the drawers remains open with two stiff pale male feet jutting out – the dead body of Mr. B. While this scene shows Mr. B’s final fate, the others give us a look at key moments in his childhood. He exists only as a creation of the artists and as a character in the minds of viewers, his life lived through fabricated spaces frozen in time.
The final room shows the garage of a private house, with the garage door closed and shelves storing typical lower class tools and objects. A 1950s motor scooter is parked in the middle of the garage with a baby boy placed in a cardboard box strapped to the back seat. Visitors are left to wonder how the baby got there and what will become of him. This is the beginning of the character’s life story – open for new dramas to unfold and new endings to be concluded.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s exhibition «The One and the Many» will be on view from May 28 until September 25, 2011 at the former Submarine Wharf in Rotterdam’s harbor as part of an ongoing partnership between Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Port of Rotterdam.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s new performative public sculpture «It’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry» – commissioned by Sculpture International Rotterdam – will also be on view from May 28 and throughout the year.
Their work «Powerless Structures, Fig. 101» has been selected as the winner of the Fourth Plinth Commission in London’s Trafalgar Square, to be unveiled in 2012.
Michael Elmgreen is born at Copenhaguen, Danmark ; Ingar Dragset is born at Trondheim, Norway.
They live and work in Berlin, Germany