#1 [May 2005]

"Strukturwandel”- Project of Olafur Gislason at Kunstverein Cuxhaven

Strukturwandel, Collage

2005
Courtesy of the artist

Although the Icelandic artist Olafur Gislason, who lives in Hamburg since 1983, is a sculptor, he does not produce works of sculpture in the usual sense. Rather, he initiates creative and social processes and designs or chooses places to enable such processes to take place.

For the exhibition project “A Whiter Shade of Pale” Gislason works on the issue of the decline of fishing and the social structural change (Strukturwandel). This issues are an important matter not only in Iceland, where Gislason was born in 1962, but as well in Cuxhaven (Germany). Gislason´s work for Cuxhaven consists of several reciprocally referential aspects. First he conducted interviews with shrimp fishermen, with captains of deep sea fishing vessels, with a fish merchant and with the heads of the largest fishing companies. The edited conversations have been combined into a monologue and are spoken by an actor. The monologue may be heard in a small stage building designed by Gislason and located upon the North Sea quay. Only the outher area of the construction may be occupied by the audience. Through four windows at various levels, it is possible to watch a female acrobat who performs in the interior, in the actual stage-space. The Kunstverein exhibits drawings reflecting the situation in Cuxhaven. On the stage at the North Sea quay, an acrobat presents her show. The spectators can watch from outside, while similarly a sound-installation plays the recordings of the Olafur Gislason’s conversations in Cuxhaven.

At the same time there may be seen, in the Cuxhavener Kunstverein drawings and watercolors done by Gislason, diverse and to some extent associative illustrations of the precarious situation in which the Cuxhaven fishing industry finds itself. During his on-site investigations, Gislason discovered in the Cuxhaven fishing museum the figure of a seaman which he likewise has placed in the Kunstverein for the duration of the exhibition. Gislason sees the placement in a museum of the display-window mannequin dressed up as a seaman as symbol for the decline of the fishing industry, its transformation into a museum. In a countermove, there may be seen in the fisching museum a video which documents the excursion of the figure to the Cuxhavener Kunstverein.

Strukturwandel, 2005
Courtesy of the artist

Gislason’s work is characterized by a collective mode of production, in which people of different backgrounds, ages and social standings are integrated into the creative process. The artist himself remains in the background. Gislason deals artistically with the personal everyday experiences of the persons taking part in his project and relates these to general social questions. In works like "Dreams in Hannover" (2002) and "Global Marriages" (2003), which he developed for the Sprengel Museum Hannover and the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Olafur Gislason has most recently dealt with matters concern ing city development, migration and alienation His work in Hannover is based on interviews with Non-Europeans living there. "Global Marriages" is based on the experiences of Non-Europeans married to Liechtenstein citizens. The subjective stories and experiences of the participants are deceive for the development of his projects and are integrated into his work in the form of sound installations or as written texts.

Strukturwandel, 2005
Performance
Courtesy of the artist

“A Whiter Shade of Pale” presents young contemporary art from Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland and with that a concentrated selection of one of most interesting international art scenes at present.

A Whiter Shade of Pale
Kunst aus den Nordischen Ländern
Jeppe Hein (DK), Salla Tykkä (FIN), Jan Svenungsson (SE), Gunilla Klingberg (SE), Lars Nilsson (SE), Tue Greenfort (DK), Christian Andersson (SE), Jacob Dahlgren (SE) and Ólafur Gíslason at Cuxhavener Kunstverein
April 30– June 26
http://www.a-whiter-shade-of-pale.de/

Christian Schoen