Stalke Out of Space Project #14

Et blik på 90érne

Artist: Olafur Eliasson, Christian Schmidt Rasmussen, Peter RössellJonas Schull, Lars Bent Petersen, Peter Neusch, Jes Brinch, Peter Holst Henckel, Flemming Brusgaard.

Æggelageret Holbæk.

1994

Review

Underwear and Blue Paper Airplanes

Now the people of Holbæk will experience 90s art.

- Nine young artists exhibit at Æglageret.

There are no rotting pig carcasses, and the white underwear hanging to dry under the ceiling looks almost clean. But with piles of blue paper airplanes, a plate and a napkin, a pair of tights, and an entire row of hot dog trays on the wall, this is not the type of art the people of Holbæk are accustomed to seeing. Starting tomorrow, it will be displayed at Æglageret.

The nine young male artists are collectively part of the project Stalke Out Of Space, which is already highly recognized in Copenhagen's art scene. All of them have attended the Art Academy, and several are recipients of salaries from the State Art Foundation. Nevertheless, their names are probably unfamiliar to many residents of Holbæk — except for Jes Brinch, who earlier this summer made headlines for exhibiting smashed cars at Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen.

At Æglageret, Jes Brinch is displaying an installation consisting of white underwear printed with the slogan "destroy your mind", a row of trays, and a hot dog seller serving toast with bread and sausage. The hot dog trays are painted with texts and images that comment on the famous May 18 referendum at Nørrebro.

"Jes Brinch relates a lot to reality, particularly youth culture. In contrast to the 80s artists who looked backward, these young artists are closely connected to their own time," says Sam Jedig, the man behind Stalke Galleri in Copenhagen and the project Stalke Out Of Space gallery, which entirely shifts from space to space.

"Exhibiting in Holbæk and engaging with a completely new audience is new to me — I am very focused on dialogue with the audience," explains Sam Jedig after completing preparations for the Æglageret exhibition's opening tomorrow.

Used to Be a Punk in Holbæk

One of the exhibiting artists grew up in Holbæk, where he roamed around as a punk between the ages of 12 and 13. This is the Danish-Icelander Olafur Eliasson, who now lives in Cologne, where he is permanently associated with a progressive German gallery. He has been selected to represent Iceland at an exhibition in Munich later this year of young European art.

In his childhood city, he exhibits enormous photo prints of polished stones — patterns formed by the meeting of nature and culture.

Conceptual Highlights
The most "conceptual" of the nine exhibitors is Lars Bent Petersen, with his pile of blue paper airplanes, the tights, and the social staircase. The steps are numbered with social group labels and lead to a mountaintop. Jonas Schul exhibits harsh and brutal imagery, like baseball bats — on one it says "eat this", and on another "asshole." The violence of the times is also evident in Peter Holst Henckel's images of a German refugee camp in Solingen, where a group of refugees was burned alive alongside a pack of rats.

Peter Neuchs stands out entirely with his art lottery in a school setting, directed at the students. Meanwhile, Peter Røssell’s drawings and paintings are close to traditional techniques. Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen blends collage and paintings of his children with brutal and strange motifs from magazines. Joachim Koester contributes a series of reject shots, discarded tourist photos expressing the images we do not want to like. He also presents a giant photo of a window nailed shut entirely with boards.

"He recently exhibited in London, where he added and removed boards from the windows to create mystery. It even led people in the neighborhood to speculate about what had happened," explains Sam Jedig.

The exhibition can be seen at Holbæk Kunstforening's Æglageret exhibition building until September 4.