“The Good with the Bad”
MOGADISHNI AAR is proud to start up the new year with the group show “”The Good with the Bad”. The exhibition features a mix of new works, partly by artists represented by the gallery, partly by the two invited artists Trine Lise Nedreaas (N) and Andrew Guenther (US).
The participating artists are: Andreas Schulenburg (D/DK), Andrew Guenther (US), Benji Whalen (US), Fie Norsker (DK), Julie Nord (DK), Lise Blomberg (DK), Rasmus Bjørn (DK), Tor-Magnus Lundeby (N), Trine Lise Nedreaas (N), Will Turner (UK) and Willem Weissmann (NL).
The show will feature selected works with a plurality of media ranging from paintings, watercolors and drawings to cut-outs and sculptures. In spite of the huge range of works, the works on display do have some common traits and themes. Some of them will present an imaginative landscape and a world, that at first sight appear safe, but at a second glance reveals, that nothing is as it seems. A clear common denominator is also a focus on the naive and figurative, details, humour and a censure of todays society.
The title of the show, “The Good with the Bad”, refers to Benji Whalens sculpture. His work shows a chaotic pile of people, and he then emphasizes in a humoristic manner, how all people strive for the top with the consequences it might have, good and bad. The entertaining element is also an integrated part of a series of oil paintings by Andreas Schulenburg. Where his works, who put society under debate, earlier presented dialogues between little animal figures, the time has now come to show people interactions.
The British artistt Will Turner shows a number of refined cut-outs with the motives inspired by the Mexican festival “Day of the Dead”. On this day the Mexicans celebrate the continuation of life in a parallel world, a celebration which Turner interpret by shiny skulls and dancing women in a non definable outer space. In the painting “The Hunter” the American artist Andrew Güenther also portrays a world beyond. Here we witness a ghostlike figure moving around in a colorful and hallucinatory universe. The artist finds among others his inspiration by the Spanish painter Fransisco Goya.
Another artist, who also uses highly powerful colours, is the Dutchman Willem Weismann. He presents a big, detailed painting, in which he continues his working with themes of political and global awareness. On the contrary, the Danish artist Rasmus Bjørn is focusing on an intimate sphere. His painting shows a look into the artist´s hole, where you see works by some other artists, who the gallery represents.
The Danish artist Julie Nord participates with a watercolour, which illustrates her new preoccupation with doll´s houses. With the doll´s house as a topic, she wishes to settle with a stereotype, which includes fixed gender-roles and a petty bourgeois attitude. In her work an extreme big girl points out the illusory in the dollhouse-universe as a trivial construction. Showing an intimate space of remembrance is also characteristic of Lise Blomberg´s surrealistic universe. Her new painting shows a woman sleeping in a landscape with a purple sky.The purple colour brings the painting a both gloomy and an optimistic expression.
The Danish artist Fie Norsker contributes to the show with a drawing, which brings the observer into an obscure landscape of fantasy. Norsker is clearly preoccupied with amorphous shapes, and in this particularly work her characteristic curves seem to predict an utopian and foreboding condition. A landscape of fantasy is also typical for the the Norwegian artist Tor-Magnus Lundeby. He is especially focused on details, which brings his works a mechanical, identifiable and a compelling expression. Trine Lise Nedreaas is occupied with individuals and their unachieved life goals and aspirations. Her works are primarily videos with a documentary style, yet with a fictional element making people perform their speciality in a certain setting.