Underskog

Lautom Contemporary is proud to present the second exhibition in the gallery by the Norwegian born, Berlin based artist Øystein Aasan.

Øystein Aasan uses a series of works to modify the idea of originality and production. Adorno wrote about the importance of the moment of production, but what if that moment is constantly repeated, and what if we don’t know who took part in any of the moments?

Bootleg Piece no. 4, 2008 follows a series of works that Øystein Aasan has been producing since 2006. A bootleg is a counterfeit recording of music, often deeply treasured by music fans for its “realness” or its closeness to the moment of production. A bootleg might contain different types of recordings, be it concerts or outtakes from officially released albums. So, in a sense this work is a sound piece, but in order to listen to it, you, as a visitor must take a CD home and listen to it there.

The Catfish Blues probably first surfaced around 1919, but was not recorded until 1941 by Robert Petway. No one knows who actually wrote the song, but it has been rerecorded numerous times. So without an author and without a fixed date, what we hear are most likely later generations of the song.

This leads us to the next series of works in this show: The Copy Negatives – A copy negative is a photographic negative without an original. It is mass-produced in order to promote, for instance films, TV shows or companies. As with the recordings on the CD, they do not have a named author. The negatives exist as multiples and have the potential to be even many more multiples. In the four works titled Copy Negatives, Øystein Aasan writes a description of each image, and so continues a working method which often includes text/images, film scripts and descriptions of literature. In this particular series he writes a new description for every time a new edition of the work is produced. That means the image stays the same, but the text is always changing. And since the text changes, so does your reading of the image.

The text/image issue is revisited in the work Victoria, 2008. Here two images of a public statue in Liverpool are cut up and re-assembled so that you can see each image from its specific angle only. Otherwise you see both images intertwined. One of the images pictures the statue itself, the other its title: Victoria.

Since his graduation in 2004, Aasan has had numerous exhibitions including The 2006 Liverpool Biennale, Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Wien), Galerie Mehdi Chouakri (Berlin), Sørlandets Kunstmuseum and FRAC Bretagne (Rennes).

In 2008 Øystein Aasan took part in Lights On – norsk samtidskunst at the Astrup Fearnley museum of Art. This year he will do group exhibitions in Leipzig, Rapperswil and Cologne, and solo shows in Berlin and Hamburg, as well as doing a special lounge project for Art Forum Berlin.

The next exhibition, Wrap your troubles in a dream with Juan Pedro Fabra, Tessa Farmer, Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen, Gabriel Lester, Katarina Löfström and Johan Thurfjell, curated by Power Ekroth opens on the 15th of August.

I sommer er Lautom åpent torsdag – søndag 12-16

Men det er virkelig bare å ringe 22 59 84 84 om dere har vanskelig for å komme i disse åpningstidene, det er ofte folk der utenom de tidene. Men om det er folketomt og ingenting å gjøre og 30 grader så er det fint å kunne tillate seg en ettermiddag på stranden eller noen dager på hytta.