Stalke Out of Space Project #1
BAGHUSET
Stockholm Art Fair
Jes Brinch, Lars Bent Petersen, Joachim Koester, Peter Neuchs, Peter Holst Henckel, Peter Røssell, Christian Schmidt Rasmussen, Special Guest: Olafur Eliasson, Eva Larsson, Michael Elmgreen/Henrik Olesen, Christine Melchiors
13.3 to 18.3. 1991
Stalke Out Of Space
When Stalke Gallery began its activities in 1987, the idea was to create an alternative to the existing galleries and art institutions in Denmark. We wanted to convey contemporary and modern national and international art, to create contact and awareness across established boundaries.
Stalke Gallery quickly gained recognition for its communication efforts, becoming a concept, an institution.
The gallery has now reached a point where it is time to reconsider institutionalization and, consequently, to tear down the familiar and expected frameworks to highlight the central aspect of the communication process: the artistic expression
.
The project, which will run parallel to Stalke Gallery, is Stalke Out Of Space, with the intent to make the gallery institution so visible that it cannot be overlooked. The permanent gallery space is dissolved in favor of all other spaces with exhibition potential. These undefined spaces can range from traditional art spaces: Museums, Art Centers, and Galleries, to symbolic and alternative non-established art spaces: e.g., telecommunication and private businesses. Stalke Out Of Space thus moves as an institution from space to space, whereby the gallery institution's message is relocated in relation to the individual space, its significance, and its forum, as well as the current artist's use of it.
The relationship between gallery and artist necessitates an unconventional form of collaboration, as the aesthetic as well as the commercial frameworks for each exhibition must be built from scratch. The artists' work thus becomes part of the gallery's operation. And vice versa: The gallery institution becomes part of the exhibited art.
Our wish with the Stalke Out Of Space project is to create an alternative exhibition form – an alternative for both artists, audiences, and art mediators.
Sam Jedig
1990/91
Stalke Out Of Space
"An Alternative Exhibition Project"
The commercial gallery form, as we know it today, has existed for more than 100 years. The idea from the start was to present art to a paying audience from the better bourgeoisie in an environment that was a mixture of their parlors and museum exhibition spaces. Since then, both art and its audience have changed radically, and the gallery industry as a whole has responded accordingly. A significant shift occurred particularly in the 1960s and 1970s when the quality of galleries declined rapidly at the outset – and today, the new galleries that emerge are often completely traditional.
The galleries have, in a sense, failed both art and its audience. As a result, many artists have had to seek alternative exhibition opportunities – such as museums and other exhibition institutions, warehouses, farms, condemned buildings, gravel pits, etc. – with the significant drawback of having to give up professional promotion and dissemination. Either artists have had to adapt their art to the existing gallery format – with an even greater drawback in the form of artistic compromises.
Stalke Out Of Space is an attempt to consistently address the new situation of art and meet its need for both unconventional exhibition frameworks and professional promotion. Instead of art having to adapt to the presentation in the gallery's premises, an alternative exhibition project has been created outside the classical gallery space. This project is also used as a platform to secure better exhibition conditions for the individual artist and better exhibition frameworks for their art. The gallerist here becomes both promoter and ambassador for the artists.
As the first manifestation of this altered gallery format, Stalke Out Of Space participated at the Stockholm Art Fair in March 1991 with an installation by Baghuset artists (in a trade fair context, a very unusual and remarkable project).
Bent Petersen
1991
Bent Petersen was Editor of the art magazine North
Stalke Out Of Space
PRESS
STALKE OUT OF SPACE presents BAGHUSET at
The 11th Stockholm Art Fair, Sollentuna 13.-17. March 1991.
Stand no: 330
BAGHUSET GALLERY is an artist-run gallery.
Since its founding in 1987, BAGHUSET GALLERY has established itself as a pioneering gallery for new, young, and experimental art.
BAGHUSET GALLERY is run by and represents the following 7 artists:
Jes Brinch, Peter Holst Henckel, Joachim Koester,
Peter Neuchs, Lars Bent Petersen, Peter Rossell,
Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen.
"Baghuset is after the form. Right there in front of us, in the world's global myriad of signs, configurations, and flow of information, we can see a project which is neither a gallery nor a united group of artists; it is hardly art at all. What we are looking at is a strategy which is rearranging the world's meanings from a standpoint located within the art institution."
From the catalogue essay "Baghuset follows after the form: Art after art" by Anders Michelsen.
At Stockholm Art Fair ‘91, BAGHUSET GALLERY will also be showing works by:
Eva Larson, Christine Melchiors, Olafur Eliasson, and Michael Elmgreen/Henrik Olesen.
Reception for the press: Tuesday, the 12th of March.
Yours Sincerely,
Sam Jedig
