Secession

Lone Haugaard Madsen

03 Mar - 23 Apr 2006

LONE HAUGAARD MADSEN
RAUM #26 – RETROFLEKSIVE
March 3 – April 23, 2006
Grafisches Kabinett

In the works of the Danish artist Lone Haugaard Madsen, discussion events and texts as forms of theoretical engagement with art occupy as large a place as concrete works, her photography, objects, and drawings themselves. The fundamental questions she addresses concern the conditions of making and exhibiting art: Which contexts constitute an artwork? What makes an institution? What is the relation of a catalogue to its exhibition, to the institutional space, to the artist’s intentions, and to the expectations of the public?

Consequently, Lone Haugaard Madsen treats the catalogue, her first major publication, not as documentation but as an extension of her exhibition in the Grafisches Kabinett at the Secession. For the cover design, she refers back to her series of filmed or photographed “white” walls of art institutions where she has worked. These photos and videos were projected onto the walls of exhibition spaces, with the resulting layering and simulation creating an interlocking of the actual and the mediated, of private and public space. The cover shows a photo of the Secession logo designed by Heimo Zobernig as drawn by the artist in pencil on the wall of her studio.

In this way, Lone Haugaard Madsen questions the parameters of the art business by subjecting her own position within it to careful scrutiny, making this reflection part of her own production. She takes a step back, checks, reduces, edits, and then continues. Her recent work has concentrated on work in the studio and the question of the extent to which this space is institutionalized, what kind of production it demands, and which decisions and considerations take place in this special place.

Her new works and texts were made in the studio and reflect various working and decision-making processes. These supposedly autonomous objects point to an artistic will that cannot be explained in solely conceptual terms, although they also formulate a lack of belief in authoritarian gestures of knowledge and skill. The works bring together diverse aspects, traces and lines inscribed in the underlying paper while drawing, errors or shifts of the kind made during transcription or when speaking a foreign but closely related language, scraps of paper with notes, materials left over from the production of something which itself is not visible. Things that are not shown, and thoughts: the actual drawing that left its traces on the paper is hidden from us (if indeed it is a drawing at all), just as we do not know which of the things discussed during Lone Haugaard Madsen’s conversation with Heimo Zobernig for the catalogue go unmentioned, kept from the reader.

What is visible is a kind of postponement, since the actual objects of desire are held back; or a tentative approach to sculpture and painting, which are positively reluctant to appear as works in the conventional sense. As such, they are never “innocent” creations; they are always aware of their own background and contextual complexities, which are reflected on a multitude of levels.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with an interview by Lone Haugaard Madsen with Heimo Zobernig, a text by Sanne Kofod Olsen, and texts by Lone Haugaard Madsen.

LONE HAUGAARD MADSEN, born in 1974, lives and works in Copenhagen and Vienna.
SHOWS (selection): 2005 Update, Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna; 2004 Installation of Mellemrummet, Overgaden, Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; Galerie Antik, Berlin; Invocazione all ́Orsa Maggiore, Österreichisches Kulturforum, Rome; Kapsch KarriereKomm AG, Kunst und Wirtschaft, Firma Kapsch, Vienna; 2003 Ideologia II, Biennale, Göteborg; Interferenze(n), Galerie Prisma, Bozen; Artists Choice CAT-Open, MAK Gegenwartskunstdepot, Vienna; 2002 Interim Platform, Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Vienna; ArtGenda 2002, Biennial for Young Artists from Baltic Countries, Hamburg; Generali Foundation Display, Vienna; 2001 Forårsudstillingen, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen.

Installation shots: Matthias Herrmann

© Lone Haugaard Madsen
RAUM #26 – RETROFLEKSIVE, 2006
 

Tags: Matthias Herrmann, Lone Haugaard Madsen, Heimo Zobernig