Yngve Holen
15.8.-13.10.13
Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger
Installations
Measuring the range of airplanes, 3D-printing, transforming shapes into marble. The incredible possibilities of contemporary technology make the background of this exhibition.
What I see are chunks of meat made in marble, placed on airplane aisles, lifted up on what appears to be massage benches, and oversized 3D-printouts of distorted smart phones.
These strike me as monuments to our sudden, immense wealth. What happens when a culture shifts from poor to rich? You start eating expensive food like meat (or even follow intricate diets eating only meat), shopping body treatments, travelling to exotic places, buying the latest technology stuff like smartphones. And then there is the catalogue. A slick, flashy magazine containing texts about flying and instagram pictures of travel, some showing the luxury of business class, others showing the chaos after a serious turbulence, but all with one major purpose: to tell the world (on the web) that you are travelling, either in luxury or on an adventure. This is the story of our generation, suddenly realizing we can buy almost all we wish for.
Is this a criticism of our consumer lifestyle? Or rather a celebration of it? Marble sculptures were used to depict important persons or events, here the use of expensive marble and 3D-printing to depict something ordinary might symbolise the meaninglessness of our wealth.
What about the amount of sculptures? Each smartphonesculpture is unique, but the marblemeatpieces appear as identical. Only the position of their pedestals/massagebenches/airplanaisles are different. Why produce several identical sculptures when one would really be enough? Why have 3 cars when you can only drive one at the time, why have two cottages when you can only stay in one at the time? Because you can do it.
