In (part A) we saw some of what Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset have been doing artistically to shake and shape the customary meanings we associate with spatial relationships. Their intention is to create room for new and different interpretations beyond an established tradition of social and economic change as an incremental experience. This expression of the alterability of established structures through what they term ”powerless structures” is somewhat of a contradiction since the authority arises from this new architecture of thought built around structural critique and a vision of a more open society.
Short Cut 2003, Milan
Although their art or installations are inclusive on a conceptual level, a shared experience of exclusion and isolation is a predominant theme, punctuated by flashes of dark humour. This idea of disconnect and marginalization is reflected by the visitors to the exhibits who have few possibilities of choice, thus a feeling of total powerlessness. Elmgreen and Dragset see a determined structural push by governement and the private sector toward uniformity in society since this generates the lowest cost and the highest profit; at the expense and fear of diversity.
”Throughout our entire practice we have worked with what you could call denials:installations which at first appear as if they were meant to be interactive but in fact don’t allow any kind of direct participation by the spectator. Accessibility and exclusion have been important topics for us all the time.”
Their installations are presented in a highly entertaining and public friendly way, in a sophisticated artistic language that masks an attack at undermining the art establishment. They attack a subject by mimicking its tools without becoming predictable and caricaturistic, such as the travelling ”Welfare Show”.
Their more recent exhibition is the ambitious ”The Collectors” which links the Danish and Nordic Pavilions for the Venice Biennale this Summer. Its been termed as ”curating as art”, primarily motivated by the artist’s exploration of the psychology behind the art of collecting. In the Danish pavilion it is the need for order and meaning in acquiring and in the Nordic it is sexual identity where accumulating art is synonymous to erotic conquest. Their art is not without its detractors, but it leaves few indifferent.
Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennale
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