SPACE December 2024 (No. 685)
Installation view of Shadow House / Image courtesy of the artists / ©Andrea Rossetti
The Amorepacific Museum of Art is hosting ‘Spaces’, a retrospective exhibition celebrating 30 years of collaboration between the Nordic artist duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset (hereinafter Elmgreen & Dragset). Elmgreen & Dragset were first renowned for their early work which dismantled the white cube space, and further expanded their artistic realm by incorporating architectural elements. They proposed new possibilities for design by completely undermining the meaning of space through the transformation of exhibition halls to unexpected environments such as swimming pools, hospital wings, and so on. This exhibition fully encapsulates their works. It begins in a fully realised single house complete with a living room, bedroom, and bathroom, then moves through a drained swimming pool, a seemingly operational restaurant, an industrial kitchen and laboratory amidst research, and finally, to an artist’s studio. Visitors can’t fully rid themselves of their doubts as they move through the five fragmented spaces. This is because they are compelled to piece together a narrative across the mysterious stories embedded by the artist. For instance, in Shadow House (2024), visitors encounter a young boy (I, 2023) writing the letter ‘I’ on a window with his finger, evoking contemplative memories of ‘my’ childhood. In The Cloud (2024), the figure of a woman engrossed in a video call at a restaurant raises unsettling questions about whether the space is real or fictional. These hidden clues hint at expansive themes: identity and relationships, class and gender, and the decline of public spaces. While these stories originate with artists, their conclusions are left in the hands of the audience. The exhibition will be on show until Feb. 23, 2025.
