ME&WE
ME contemporary looks forward to this grand opening version 2.0, showing a specially selected work from each of the gallery's six artists, each of whom has in turn invited a guest to exhibit alongside them. The show's overarching theme is a celebration of collaboration, a nod to the gallery's move to Warehouse 48, which houses a number of design showrooms, including Montana, Luceplan and Erik Jorgensen. The new ME contemporary will share the space with Peter Lassen's GRID system consisting of a basic module with open sides, which, through a multitude of combination possibilities, offers almost any desirable solution of furniture.
ME & WE will incorporate a number of works, each with a story onto itself. Norwegian artist Morten Viskum shows his newest installation I'm crazy about Liza. We get on the phone and just gossip, gossip, gossip a work that offers viewers the opportunity to revisit two legends: Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol. Based on an interview which Warhol did with the young Jackson in 1982, the two pop icons are once again united. Andy Warhol is also Viskum´s guest – from the beyond – and with a number of his pornographic Polaroids from the 70's, Warhol seems extremely vital and present.
Milica Tomic's work is the result of a collaboration.Together with Hungarian artist Roza El-Hassan, Tomic exhibits their photo montage, Milica Tomic and Roza El-Hassan driving in the Porsche and thinking about overpopulation, which places the two artists next to a smiling Jørg Haider, in his Porsche. A work from 2003 that has not been previously shown in Denmark, today,the piece stands as an almost prophetic work, as, in 2008, Haider contributed to reduce his share of the population when he drove himself to death in his sports car.
Marco Evaristti´s work takes hold of the three monotheistic religions´ dominance in Western society. In this work, however, he deprives them of their power in the form of words, as the Torah, Bible and Koran, are submerged in water. Here, the holy writings are handed over to natural decay, and may even end up as fish food for aquarium fish. In this way, Evaristti envisions a cycle in which civilization is permitted to start anew, based on life in its purest form springing from water. As his guest, Evaristti has invited Mikkel Munch-Fals, whose work Berlingo Road Warrior in a 160 cm long cinematic photo collage, invites the viewer into a frustrated suburban dad's universe.
Nin Brudermann shows photos from her thoroughly documented Twelve O'Clock in London project, an almost utopian story about a united action all countries around theworld engage in twice daily and completely synchronous - namely the launching of weather balloons. Brudermann also brings along a work from her OUT series – a collection of anonymous artists' works, who, for one reason or another, didn't "make it" – works that have been discarded, or sometimes even destroyed. Reminiscent of Brudermann's previous work with trash for her 2010 exhibition, Late Night Show, OUT illustrates that within“garbage” lie endless sources of titillating curiosity and perhaps even revealed stories and truths.
Ursula Reuter celebrates the new premises´ generous ceiling height and shows the work Kokoner (Cocoons) - a 260 cm high painting upon which three cocoons are claustrophobically spun, seemingly floating above one another. Cocoon is by nature a complex figure – at one stage safe yet claustrophobic, and at the next, when the shell is broken and the world opens up, free but vulnerable. Ursula Reuter has invited her former student Ismar Cirkinagic to participate in the show. Since graduating from the Academy, Cirkinagic has had several major solo exhibitions and received much recognition for his work with disturbing themes rooted in his own story as a refugee from Bosnia. In ME&WE, the artist shows a Herbarium, a series of framed,pressed plants accompanied by a precise logbook records of plant species and take place: “Onagraeceae, Slope to mine complex in Ljubia, primary, secondary and tertiary mass graves”. The concise and dispassionate recording of the beautiful dried, pressed plants are in stark contrast to the underlying catastrophe, and it thereby stands as a strong and powerful remembrance piece for the war in the Balkans, as well as any other war.
Mathias Kessler has, in recent years, been using his camera to make recordings of nature from remote areas the average person rarely reaches. By relating to modern man's domination over nature, the artist portrays areas that in the media are doomed to be infinitesimal: the icebergs,and areas where no man, certainly not modern, have actually been and where nature in its own right is far superior. In one such instance, lie the giant caves whose only access is from the plate on Mount Tepui's vertical hillside. As a counterpart to these enormous, almost mythical caves, Kessler has invited photographer Matthew Niederhauser, whose recent projects have investigated China today, as the exhibition shows photos of Happy Magic Water Cube,Beijing Water Cube Water Park. The meeting between the artificially staged water park with its eerie blue color and Kessler´s earth-colored cave photos, creates a new reality that in an interesting and unintentional manner serves to reinforce their own story.
With its variety of works,the show, ME&WE, offers as well the independent experience as well as the one that occurs between one or more works. As in any other relationship where there is room for both the me and the us.