Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
26 Jan - 26 Feb 2006
Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset :
The Welfare Show
26 January - 26 February 2006
What is the welfare state? What has caused its decline? How socially responsible has it been? The Welfare Show by artists Michael Elmgreen (born 1961, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (born 1969, Norway) uses sculptures, installations and an encyclopaedic style catalogue to focus attention on welfare systems in the Western world. Within this context, visitors are invited to consider such concepts as power, economic disparity, health care, immigration, the police state, and the social role of art.
For more than a decade, the artists have been collaborating to create sculptures and installations that challenge conventional notions of institutions and public spaces within contemporary society. Since 1997, their Powerless Structures series of works has investigated how sites such as prisons, social security offices, hospitals, museums, galleries and parks exercise social control.
The artists live and work in Berlin and have had many international exhibitions, including the Untitled series at Tate Modern and Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennale, both 2003. They were nominated for the HUGO BOSS PRIZE, 2000, and received Germany’s Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst, 2002.
Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset: The Welfare Show is initiated by Bergen Kunsthall, Norway and produced in collaboration between Bergen Kunsthall; Bawag Foundation, Vienna; The Power Plant, Toronto; and the Serpentine Gallery, London.
www.serpentinegallery.org
© Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
Reg(u)arding the Guards 2005
Courtesy of Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen
Photo © 2006 Thor Brødreskift
The Welfare Show
26 January - 26 February 2006
What is the welfare state? What has caused its decline? How socially responsible has it been? The Welfare Show by artists Michael Elmgreen (born 1961, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (born 1969, Norway) uses sculptures, installations and an encyclopaedic style catalogue to focus attention on welfare systems in the Western world. Within this context, visitors are invited to consider such concepts as power, economic disparity, health care, immigration, the police state, and the social role of art.
For more than a decade, the artists have been collaborating to create sculptures and installations that challenge conventional notions of institutions and public spaces within contemporary society. Since 1997, their Powerless Structures series of works has investigated how sites such as prisons, social security offices, hospitals, museums, galleries and parks exercise social control.
The artists live and work in Berlin and have had many international exhibitions, including the Untitled series at Tate Modern and Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennale, both 2003. They were nominated for the HUGO BOSS PRIZE, 2000, and received Germany’s Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst, 2002.
Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset: The Welfare Show is initiated by Bergen Kunsthall, Norway and produced in collaboration between Bergen Kunsthall; Bawag Foundation, Vienna; The Power Plant, Toronto; and the Serpentine Gallery, London.
www.serpentinegallery.org
© Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
Reg(u)arding the Guards 2005
Courtesy of Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen
Photo © 2006 Thor Brødreskift