Herman Isaksen
Birgitta Lorentzon
Jan Pettersson
Mats Wilhelmsson
20:e mars - 5 april 2009
Herman Isaksen
Trondheim
Jeg fotograferer urbane landskap med spor av menneskers aktivitet. Mine bilder er en arkeologisk dokumentasjon av de fingeravtrykk som mennesker setter i naturen. Jeg bearbeider mine fotografier digitalt i Photoshop og printer dem ut på transparant folie. Deretter blir bildene overfört til trykkplater og serigrafiduk som er dekket med fotoemolusjon. Denne prosessen skjer i en vakumkopiramme i UV-lys. Deretter blir trykkplater og serigrafiduker fremkalt i vann og trykket som fotopolymer-gravure og serigrafi.
ARTISTS STATEMENT
The subject of my art is nature touched by the human hand.
A landscape of urban development created by city planners, architects and contractors.
Earth, water, wood, concrete, metal and glass.
Close ups of industrial areas where the winds of change gradually wipes out visible signs of the past.
My prints are an archaeological documentation.
What you see does not exist any more.
Herman Isaksen
Trondheim
Norway
23rd March 2006
Birgitta Lorentzon
Göteborg
Birgitta Lorentzon, Grafiker – Målare, bor och arbetar i Göteborg
Under 1970-talet studier på Valands Konsthögskola, senare experimentell grafik på Kungl. Konsthögskolan i Stockholm.
Kopparplåtens möjligheter inom etsning och djuptryckets område från ”ljus till svärta” ligger som grund för min grafiska verksamhet.
Intresset för analogt äldre fotografiskt hantverk och dess ljusbearbetning, har alltid funnits, men först 1993 började jag arbeta med ”fotogravyr”, som en grafisk arbetsprocess. Då som etsade kopparplåtar, med den process som lågsamt bygger upp en etsad bild i plåten.
Till en temautställning 2003 på Röda Sten i Göteborg, arbetade jag med en kombination av analogt fotografi och FP-gravyr tryck. Bildmaterialet och Röda Stens utställningsrum med sin grova karaktär och volym skapade tillsammans en visuell helhet. Den utställningsformen passade mitt bildtemperament och sedan dess har fotopolymer tillkommit som komplement till kopparplåten som mitt arbetsmaterial.
Birgitta Lorentzon
Jan Pettersson
Bergen
The true Lasse:
”The true Lasse” består av 60 porträtt som utgångspunkt. För denna utställning har jag valt att visa ett urval av arbeten ur detta projekt.
”The true Lasse” rör sig runt identifiering/personifiering och skapandet av en visuell profil av min vän Lasse och hur man kodar detta som betraktare utifrån kännedom av personen/inhämtad fakta eller utifrån registrade referenser och aktiverade minnesfragment. Vad är det vi ser på? Vilket av porträtten är den ”Verklige Lasse” ? Svaret är kanske inget och alla.
Genom att arbeta med porträttet i olika versioner kan jag placera honom i olika situationer(uttryck) för betraktaren att evaluera. Porträttet är i ett statiskt tillstånd men de signifikativa kännetecken som vi som betraktare uppmärksammar, förflyttas med oss från bild till bild. Kan vi tolka en individs psykologi genom ett porträtt och kan det i sin tur ses på som svar till frågorna runt vår egen teorisering av det? Den undermedvetna identifikationen av att vara inne i händelsen i dåtid, nutid och framtid, att inte lämna den utan att stanna och att övervinna den från insidan.
Jan Pettersson Bergen 27 01 09
EVENTUAL CLUES FOR SEEING
“THE TRUE LASSE”
(I)
*) The tradition of portraiture: the autonomy of the individual:
providing metaphysical significance to the self-regard of the bourgeoisie
*) Providing appropriately symbolic forms for social meaning:
social prestige – status – power – respect for authority
*) Psychology: the essence of the individual: portraiture as a
landscape
“Tymotheo”: LEAL SOUVENIR (Loyal Remembrance); painting by Jan
van Eyck, 1432; similarity as a sign of equality
*) (Technique)
Optics: Educating the visual: seeing “right; focussing on the retinal;
compositional devices; seeing through aesthetic construction
Optical devices: instruments designed to “see through”: telescopes,
microscopes, eyeglasses, spyglasses, camerae obscurae, magic lanterns
*) Photo: spontaneity vs aesthetic construction
*) The post-modern: Donald Judd: “Unfortunately, art tends to become
a likeness, but that’s not really what it is” (value judgement indeed …)
*) Fetish – Icon – Representation
If the original notion of the icon was that of reproducing the “essence” of a
particular being, by now we tend to believe that icons in contemporary
visual arts have become mirrors upon which we try to catch a glimpse of
our (self-reflection) own gaze.
*) Portrait of a dog, of a horse, of a cow, of a friend?
*) The “Other”:
Meeting Lasse is meeting his “other”, that is, meeting ourselves in the
condition of viewers.
Meeting Lasse is to meet our own gaze looking at him.
*) Social devices: representation is no longer connected to the certainty
of a rational, general or correct interpretation of Thing, but rather to the
possibility of negotiating, sharing or confronting a dialogue about the
“represented” or assumed objects.
*) Language: if we assume the idea of expression as a process rather than
as a concrete and final product, then portraying Lasse is equal to the act of
both talking about him and talking to him, and every single word used in
this operation is part of the song we sing through and to each other.
*) The contemporary: it could happen that the man called Lasse may be
present at the show …
(II)
LASSE
Nikos told me a story he had heard from a Canadian:
A wealthy prince from the Middle East wanted to add to his treasure
a masterpiece of art. He invited an artist from the farthest kingdom to the
West and another from the farthest kingdom to the East, to compete for a
prize.
A Greek and a Chinese arrived. They shared a space divided by a huge
drapery.
The Chinese started at once with long working days, whereas the Greek
invited the local artists, philosophers and poets to visit whenever they
wanted. His space was always full of people.
Then, one day, the prince announced the time had come to show him the
results.
The Chinese showed a great painting with clouds, mountains, rivers,
pathways, temples, characters, animals and blades of grass. The prince was
amazed and expressed his wish to wander through the landscape, the most
beautiful he had ever seen.
As he had already heard talk of the Chinese’s industry and the Greek’s
constant partying, he asked, with mistrust, for the drapery dividing the
spaces to be removed.
To his surprise, he found himself surrounded by a sublime landscape.
Entranced, he walked into it.
On his wall, the Greek had mounted a wide mirror reflecting the work of
the Chinese.
Anthropology proposes that one way of constructing identity is the consciousness
of the Other. On the other hand, Lacan’s psychoanalysis mistrusts the impurities
of the Self whose construction is based on the image reflected in a mirror. The East
speaks of the illusion of the Self, and Master Eckhart says that “the eye with which
I see god is the same eye with which god sees me.”
Text av Carlos Capelán
Utdrag ut texten , Please join the Party av Prof. Søren Kjørup
In the project ”The True Lasse”, where we are directly invited to do our own coding of the work.
What do we really see here? Which of the many renderings of Lasse shows us the real person? The answer, obviously, is both ”None” and ”All”. The real Lasse is of course a human being in flesh and blood, living and moving and changing through time, but what we see here are only a series of reflections of a reflection, prints made from an original photograph that has captured just a very short moment in time. But in another sense all of them show us the real Lasse, or perhaps better a real Lasse, as each of them shows us one aspect of his personality (or at least: a possible aspect of his personality – since I am not sure that all the sinister-looking highwaymen in the series give away Lasse’s real personality).
What is more important, however, is that by making all these different prints of the one original photograph, Jan Pettersson reminds us that also one ”original” person does not have just one look, corresponding to just one personality. We are all constantly moving, changing our looks, our expressions, our visual moods. And seen in this way, the title ”The true Lasse” should not only be read as an invitation to find the true Lasse in one of the prints, but to realize that the true Lasse is not a person we meet in one specific print, but in the full series, taken as a whole.
Mats Wilhelmsson
Stockholm
Mina bilder till utställningen är fotogravyrer. De är utförda med den gamla tekniken på kopparplåt, med pigmentpapper och järnkloridbad.
Den ena serien bilder är motiv från Prag och hör till de allra första gravyrerna jag gjorde. Den andra serien är bilder från Istanbul och de bilderna tillkom nästan 20 år senare. Nu har jag ”återfunnit” dem igen och sett ett släktskap mellan dem. Genom att trycka gravyrerna på ett helt annat sätt än tidigare, använda samma pappersformat och samma färg, vill jag understryka det
som de har gemensamt. Den ljusa färgen och det aningen ”dimmiga” uttrycket är ett försök att lyfta de enskilda bildernas avbildande karaktär till en helhet som förhoppningsvis berättar en delvis annan historia..
Mats Wilhelmsson