PAVILION OF THE NAKED
Press information in Danish (PDF)
Interview with Claus Carstensen (PDF)
But You, Sir, You Shall Die. That Is What It Is About (PDF)
Duration
30.05. – 28.06.2008
Double opening
30.05.2008
5-7 pm
Colony of the Psychotic, Beaver Projects
7-9 pm
Pavilion of the Naked, Galleri Tom Christoffersen
The box set containing two artist’s books documenting the exhibitions will be published a week after the opening. The publication is supported by the Danish Arts Council.
The artist would like to thank Statens Værksteder for Kunst og Håndvæk (Gl. Dok), Sadolin, Æskefabrikken ELVO, and the assistants from Vera – skole for kunst og design.
Cube
Anne Sofie Bird Møller (DK/D): Desert Music
Claus Carstensen performs a double territorial marking by opening two solo exhibitions the same evening: COLONY OF THE PSYCHOTIC at Beaver Projects (5-7 pm) and PAVILION OF THE NAKED at Galleri Tom Christoffersen (7-9 pm). A box set of two artist’s books, which document the exhibitions and accentuates the dialogue between them, will be published a week after the openings. The exhibitions present three series of new paintings, a wall painting and a video.
“All revolutionary situations must be about annulling time in one great now. A form of permanent presence as a freedom from death and representation, and representation here should be understood as the ability to re-present or as a repeated presence as in a dammed past repeated presence, to which there is tied a certain work of memory and mourning”.*
PAVILION OF THE NAKED at Galleri Tom Christoffersen refers to a particular historical event: The Khmerer Rouge inhumane approach to Cambodia under the leadership of Pol Pot (1975-79).
In the video ” Reth’s Monologue”, Claus Carstensen invites the local guide Reth to speak of The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a place, which under the regime functioned as the violent Security Prison 21 (S-21). Reth speaks of methods of torturing by presenting the tools used, and he speaks of the life and death of individuals by pointing at teeth and bones visible on the ground of the Killing Field nearby.
One of the only survivors of Security Prison 21 was the billboard painter Vann Nath. He avoided torture because of his skills of portraying Pol Pot. After the fall of the regime Vann Nath chose to stay a year longer at Tuol Sleng in order to paint the outrages he had witnessed. The result is an almost didactic series of boards illustrating tortures systematical fragmentation of the body. The boards have the interesting quality of being both an important documentation of an experienced historical process and a personal reworking of the lived through.
Reproductions of the boards by Vann Nath are part of one of Claus Carstensen’s new series, which in a somehow grotesque distortion is done in collaboration with a billboard painter.
COLONY OF THE PSYCHOTIC at Beaver Projects consists of a yelow/black wall painting, which cover the gallery space and acts as background for a series of distorted and insisting self portraits. A psychotic fragmentation of the human body suspended between the two poles: Control and lost of control.
As encountered in Claus Carstensen’s previous production as well; A careful balance between historical/political awareness and autobiographical body characterizes Claus Carstensen’s approach to the material presented at PAVILION OF THE NAKED and COLONY OF THE PSYCHOTIC.
*the quote is from: Claus Carstensen (2001): But You, Sir, You shall die. That is what it is about.
Cube
Anne Sofie Bird Møller (DK/D): Desert Music
