28.03 – 18.05.2010
LARS ARRHENIUS – Incanto
curated by Luca Cerizza
Lars Arrhenius (Stockholm, 1966), is part of the latest generation of Scandinavian artists who are now gaining wide visibility and recognition on the international art scene.
In his first solo show in Italy, Arrhenius presents three different works, each involving synthetic forms and subtle narrative irony on different subjects: circumstances, money, life.
The Man without one Way (1999) is a series of 171 images created with a computer, representing a slice of everyday life of an everyday man. Arrhenius tells his story, from the moment he leaves the house to the moment he returns, through encounters, incidents, micro-events that influence the narrative in different ways, leading to different developments. With this series, arranged in space as a sort of computer game or musical notation, Arrhenius has achieved international visibility.
Domino (2000) is a series that continues, with significant variations, with the structure and expressive modes of The Man… Once again we find randomness, accident, eventualities playing an important role, in the story of a banknote that passes through different people, places and events, in a succession of 74 images arranged, as in the title, like a game of dominoes. This time Arrhenius has extracted the images of the series from comics from different cultures. The result is a design whose character is less cool and objective than the earlier series, with certain comical, grotesque accents.
The third work presented will be Elizabeth (2000), a video animation that narrates the life of a person in the space of 5 minutes, in forms reminiscent of the time-lapse photography utilized in science and nature documentaries.
With these works presented by Antonio Colombo Arrhenius offers us an ironic fresco, but not without bitter overtones, of the life of man, its precariousness and fleetingness, using modes of communication close to those of popular culture and youth languages.
Lars Arrhenius (1966 Stockholm) studied in Stockholm and Amsterdam. He has had many solo and group shows in galleries and public spaces. Among the most important: in 2000 at Gallery Anet Gelink in Amsterdam and Galleri Specta in Copenhagen. In 1999 and 1998 at Gallery Magnus Karlsson of Stockholm. Important group shows include, in 2000, “Supersplit”, IASPIS at Buro Friedrich in Berlin and “Language is a virus from outer space” at Norrköpings Konstmuseum, in Sweden. In 1999 “Van het collectie”, at Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam.
His only previous appearance in Italy was at the group show BIG at the Biennale di Arte Emergente in Turin in 2000.
