"Accounts of Fragile Conditions"
Thomas Bang
A new group of works
Stalke Galleri
Vesterbrogade 184, Copenhagen
12.09.03 to 18.10.03
“Accounts of Fragile Conditions”
A new series of works by Thomas Bang
Stalke Galleri was pleased to present Accounts of Fragile Conditions, Thomas Bang’s first solo gallery exhibition in seven years. The exhibition included a group of five new installation works as well as a series of new drawings, highlighting significant aspects of Bang’s artistic development in recent years
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The series Accounts of Fragile Conditionsoriginated from the theme of “conditions of damage,” a subject Bang had previously explored in works from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as in a recent exhibition at the Sophienholm Art Museum. Bang has maintained a continuing interest in the object’s encounter with a world of turbulent change—a violent mode that, in various ways, has marked the object and left it in a state of damage. While this condition had earlier been treated with a certain clarity, the layers of meaning in Bang’s recent works have become increasingly complex and paradoxical.
One element contributing to this intricate network of meaning is the narrative charge of the objects, conveyed both through their materiality and through recurring motifs and themes. The titles, like the objects themselves, are both evocative and enigmatic. Formulated in abstract terms, they pose questions and invite further inquiry while resisting closure. These fragmented narratives defy the traditional structure of beginning, middle, and end, instead requiring an interpretive leap that challenges the viewer to engage with a more open and non-linear sense of causality.
The damaged objects in this series can be seen as a kind of “navigational apparatus.” Some resemble familiar objects such as barriers or traps, yet all possess an alien and unsettling character. Their functionality—or lack thereof—is deliberately ambiguous, rejecting traditional notions of the object as merely instrumental. Bang’s exploration recontextualizes the classical logic of tools and instruments, suggesting that the object becomes less a means to a functional end and more a vehicle for opening an imaginative world in which functionality exists in a state of permanent potential for transformation.
In summary, Accounts of Fragile Conditionsunderscores Thomas Bang’s distinctive position within the field of contemporary three-dimensional art.
An illustrated catalogue with a text by Jacob Lillemose accompanied the exhibition.
In a review published in Politiken in October 2003, art critic Kristine Kern wrote about Thomas Bang’s exhibition Accounts of Fragile Conditions at Stalke Galleri. She described the exhibition as consisting of peculiar and surreal sculptures that appeared as narrative objects with an open and ambiguous character.
The review emphasized the fragility of the works and their composite, often enigmatic forms, in which recognizable elements were combined in ways that challenged conventional ideas of function and form. Kristine Kern highlighted how Bang’s objects balanced the poetic, the absurd, and the unsettling, inviting viewers to interpret fragmented stories rather than arrive at fixed conclusions.
Overall, the review positioned Thomas Bang as a significant figure in Danish contemporary art, whose work connected long artistic experience with an ongoing investigation of narrative, materiality, and existential uncertainty.
Thomas Bang, Beretninger om skrøbelige tilstande.
Produced by Thomas Bang exhibition by Stalke Galleri 2003, Text: Jacob Lillemoes, Design kristian Jacobseb Produced by Stalke Edition/Sam Jedig edition 500. Printed by Trekroner Grafik a/s
Pages 52.
In a review published in Weekendavisen in October 2003, art critic Mette Sandbye wrote about Thomas Bang’s exhibition Accounts of Fragile Conditions at Stalke Galleri. She positioned Bang as an artist with a long and consistent practice who, at this point in his career, was increasingly working with installation and spatial staging.
The review emphasized how Bang’s works engaged with narrative, fragility, and surreal shifts, combining recognizable elements into poetic and at times unsettling constellations. Mette Sandbye described the exhibition as scenographic and atmospheric, creating the experience of entering a pictorial universe marked by dreamlike, grotesque, and theatrical qualities.
Overall, the review presented Thomas Bang as a distinctive and significant figure in Danish art, whose works balanced strict formal concerns with associative storytelling and a sustained exploration of materials, space, and psychological states.