We are closing the doors of the Gallery 54 to protect. We are protecting the viewers from the Artist. We are protecting the gallery guard from the viewers. Finally, we are protecting the viewers from each other. Aren’t we noble?
Not all open doors create more accessibility. Not all closed doors are a form of violence. By not creating a physical space to enter we are enabling more people to see the art. We are pushing the experience of art out of the gallery into the walkway. We are pushing it on to the street. There it stumbles in the pedestrian's feet, tickling the footwear of Sunday flaneurs and brings an extra kick to Tuesday joggers tennis shoes. We are a glimpse of language trying to take shape.
We barely know each other. Nor do we have time to get to know each other. We are barely in time to make this show. The three musketeers that for once really are three. Trying to save a day or a gallery. Or just to fill a slot that needed filling. Yes, I know so very noble of us.
Kaisa Luukkonen, Attila Urban and Henrik Persson are new members of the board of Galleri 54.
Kaisa Luukkonen’s artistic practice revolves around emotions as bodily experienced cultural constructs that can mould futures. For her, working between bodies, audiences and materials cause a riptide where art somehow appears. In this exhibition, her work Flutter is an au homage piece to Isaac Asimov. It is an android's dream of something its maker once told about: the flight of a moth in a night. Kaisa Luukkonen graduated from Gothenburg University MA program in 2018.
In Henrik Persson’s MAKE WAR RUGS – NOT LOVE (Until Further Notice) we encounter an atavism created by pandemic pressure. A sculpture modified into a loom is the starting point for the story of a country occupied by an invisible enemy, an uninvited guest who infiltrates all rooms, all situations. Weaving as an answer to this state of abidance.
The title refers to the war-rugs made in Afghanistan following the occupation by the USSR, where depictions of the occupying powers’ weaponry were woven into the rug within its geometric patterns.
The artist’s practice will take place inside the gallery and is live-streamed on occasions.
Attila Urbán. "Silverlungan" is a 29 minutes long recorded performative sound piece on air-driven organ. The sound piece consists of improvisations between on and off. The tones emerge when the current is switched on and the instrument’s lung is filled with air. When the current is switched off the sound fades away like a slow exhalation. The piece thus becomes a reverberation of contemporary life supporting mechanics.
Attila Urbán is a multidisciplinary artist based in Gothenburg. He was educated in fine art at Valand Academy of Art and Design and at Bellas Artes in Cuenca, Spain.
The sound piece is available in its entirety via www.attilaurban.com
