Following their joint exhibition in Denmark, and continuing their exploration of the theme of ‘home’, UK artists brook & black are collaborating with Danish artists Christina Bredahl Duelund and Natascha Thiara Rydvald.
In May 2015, the artists worked together for the first time, with ‘Composing Space’ – a group exhibition at the Gjethuset Gallery, Denmark. The second part of this exchange has resulted in the exhibition, Arkitektoniske Kramper,* where the artists use moving sculpture, video, photography and installation to transform the OVADA warehouse into a multi-layered exploration of the architectural and mental space of their shared experiences. The artists are presenting new work, both collaborative and individual, as well as reconfiguring some elements and motifs that played their part in Gjethuset Gallery, Denmark, the site of their first collaboration.
Image: brook & black, Christina Bredahl Duelund, Natascha Thiara Rydvald – Arkitektoniske Kramper Installation View At OVADA Gallery 2015, Photo P A Black © Artlyst 2015.
For the Arkitektoniske Kramper exhibition, brook & black have re-sited the video diptych first shown at Gjethuset Gallery, transforming it into a window from inside the ‘home’ in which images flicker and spin. This refers to both an anxiety over global instability and threat to ‘home’, and a recurring motif of bed-making, an attempt at order and security in our individual houses. The two sheet-dipping machines are a new work created for OVADA that again refers to daily domestic ritual, and presents the viewer with something that seems familiar but irrational.
Image: brook & black, Christina Bredahl Duelund, Natascha Thiara Rydvald – Arkitektoniske Kramper Installation View At OVADA Gallery 2015, Photo P A Black © Artlyst 2015.
Christina Bredahl Duelund presents a framed drawing on the wall and a sculpture that is stretched between and connected to the walls of the gallery forming a drawing of a house in a three-dimensional perspective. To emphasise the proportion of the structure, the size of the house corresponds to the dimensions of the artist’s body in different stretched positions, to accentuate the significance of a private room – a place where you fit in and feel comfortable. Behind the house, a large scale framed drawing of the moon eclipsing the sun is shown. Mythologically the eclipse is a warning of destruction and deconstruction, it is put there to remind us of the unexpected that sometimes crosses our path and forces us to other ways of living.
Image: brook & black, Christina Bredahl Duelund, Natascha Thiara Rydvald – Arkitektoniske Kramper Installation Detail At OVADA Gallery 2015, Photo P A Black © Artlyst 2015.
Natascha Thiara Rydvald has been inspired by what the two gallery spaces contain – using materials from one exhibition, Composing Space, to reconfigure them in the other at OVADA. In ‘Romeo and Juliet In Our Time’, the blue frames from the floor-plan sculpture in Denmark are here used to frame the doors, which are now representative of two lovers fleeing their homes, separated by the circumstance of war. The cloth stairs are also reused – here in a more deconstructed way, as is the photographic piece which invites the viewer to decide if they will step into the portal.
Image: brook & black, Christina Bredahl Duelund, Natascha Thiara Rydvald – Arkitektoniske Kramper Installation View At OVADA Gallery 2015, Photo P A Black © Artlyst 2015.
*Translation: Architectural Cramps (A cramp is a device, fixed between two architectural elements, that holds them from falling away from each other. In Danish it also means a grumpy, bossy woman).
About the artists:
brook & black is an art partnership which brings together a combination of skills rooted in fine art practice: installation, sound, video, printmaking, photography and sculpture. From a process of research, investigation and experiment the artists work with made and found objects, light and sound to engage the viewer through intervening in the structure of space and sound. Through shifting the viewer’s perspective in this way, new readings, connections and emotional responses are evoked. Several core themes may be traced within the work: layers of human experience within structured or built space; memory and the passing of time; the fluidity and transformational aspects of water; the expressive and still surprising force of light and shadow. One or more of these themes often emerges in the work, frequently made in response to a specific gallery, exhibition space or site. This work is researched and developed alongside teaching and delivering engagement programmes. for galleries and non-gallery contexts.
Image: brook & black, Christina Bredahl Duelund, Natascha Thiara Rydvald – Arkitektoniske Kramper Installation View At OVADA Gallery 2015, Photo P A Black © Artlyst 2015.
Natascha Thiara Rydvald was born in Sweden and now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. Rydvald was educated in Cinematography at the Danish Film School and trained as a photographer during a four-year apprenticeship in Copenhagen. The artist works internationally with photography, moving image and installation. Rydvald often collaborates with Theatre, Dance and Opera Companies.
Christina Bredahl Duelund was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and works with different medias such as sculpture, video, photo and drawing, often resulting in 3D installations. The artist creates small statements and rudiments of scattered stories, where time and human relations are the core. By replicating fragments of domestic objects and its anatomy Dueland creates minimalistic altered sculptural versions of everyday surroundings that leads to new perspectives and perceptions of relations and spaces.
Photos: P A Black © Artlyst 2015
brook & black, Christina Bredahl Duelund, Natascha Thiara Rydvald: Arkitektoniske Kramper – OVADA Gallery – until 22 November 2015