Platform - Grüner & Vogelius x Emil Busch Madsen
For Grüner & Vogelius, everything vibrates. A friction between narratives and materials seems to allow a transformation to begin. Something stands still and something moves in a constant exchange. The seeds for what the artists call the amorphous legacy of the future are laid. The amorphous remains of the future are understood as what remains in the future and leaves clear traces, without a fixed or determined form. With the exhibition Surge, Grüner & Vogelius speculate on what can arise by breaking down the exhibition space and re-appropriating its materials.
The starting point for the exhibition is the consistent building material of the former church: Mediaeval large bricks. Original bricks and bricks with engravings that have the character of readymades are stacked in a monk bond in the space of Platform. A hole in the white wall testifies to a break with closed spaces and the defined forms, dualistic identities and linear understandings of time that characterise the present. Casts of failed Mediaeval large bricks in epoxy break with the character and connotations of the original bricks. In the encounter with the failed constructions of bricks, with their trembling, opaque materials and the original bricks, principles of how materials, form and space should be built and may appear are renegotiated. A renegotiation that takes place right down to particle level.
Small particles change character based on the space or context they are in. For Grüner & Vogelius, dust is the essential particles. In quantity and number, dust can take many forms, but it can also be easily stirred up and set in motion. At the same time, it can store endless stories that can rarely be seen at first glance. Staged light and dust make the elements of the exhibition appear deviant, vibrating and fleeting. This simultaneously sharpens and blurs the understanding that a continuous transformation is underway. Such a paradox, between stillness and movement, becomes for Grüner & Vogelius a fundamentally creative force that allows still formless and failed forms to make room. As with the failed replications of the Mediaeval large bricks and the other readymade works, deviations occur in the particle shape of the dust when it is illuminated by artificial light. The failed and the amorphous are thus given a significant place in the considerations of how the amorphous remains of the future take shape.
The title of the exhibition, Surge, can be translated as rise, sudden surge or a powerful wave. However, in English, the word surge can also be a verb or noun used to describe an action, living beings, things and concepts. Like the rest of the elements of the exhibition, the title is an entry with multiple meanings. It alludes to, among other things, the rise and wave of new breakthroughs in the understanding of time, identity and language, which in these years is gaining momentum but also points to the paradox of shaping something without a fixed core: that the end goal is not yet known.
The works are accompanied by a publication by the two artists and can be taken home free of charge.
The exhibition is curated by Emil Busch Madsen.
When: 10 February – 31 March 2024
Where: Platform
