How It’s Made

Curated by Matt Williams
07.12.2017 — 14.01.2018
  • Ed Atkins
  • Jean-Marie Appriou
  • Jonathan Binet
  • Daniel Boccato
  • Nina Canell
  • Violet Dennison
  • Eliza Douglas
  • Ryan Estep
  • Matias Faldbakken
  • Ayan Farah
  • Caspar Forsberg
  • Charles Harlan
  • John Henderson
  • Yngve Holen
  • Sergej Jensen
  • Lynn Hershman Leeson
  • Piotr Łakomy
  • Matt Keegan
  • David Ostrowski
  • Yuri Pattison
  • Diamond Stingily
  • Fredrik Værslev
  • Heimo Zobernig

Exhibition Preview Dec 7, 5-9 PM

Installation View
Charles Harlen, Båt, 2017, Dolomite pebble, fibreglass boat, 255 × 125 × 59 cm
Daniel Boccato, crossface 2017, Epoxy, berglass, polyurethane, 90 × 105 × 32 cm
Installation View
Yuri Pattison, peace mode (default) 2017, Dell PowerEdge R610 webserver, LCD monitor component, prototyping clay, c-type print, tape, crowd simulation software, cables, keys, colour temperature adjustable LED light panel, Dimensions variable.
Installation View
Casper Forsberg, THERE IS PLENTY OF HELL IN SPACE, 2015, Casted aluminium, 927 × 61 × 4 cm
Installation View
John Henderson, Reticle (model) 2017, Acrylic, gesso, printed ink on MDF panel, 51 × 66 cm
John Henderson, Reticle (model) 2017, Acrylic, gesso, printed ink on MDF panel, 51 × 66 cm
John Henderson, Reticle (model) 2017, Acrylic, gesso, printed ink on MDF panel, 51 × 66 cm
Installation View
Matt Keegan, Cutout (Mirror) 2017, Mirror-polished stainless steel, 79 × 18 × 58.5 cm
Installation View
Eliza Douglas, To cancel out humanity 2016, Oil on canvas, 195 × 145 cm
Installation View
Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lynn Turning Into Roberta, 1978, 16mm film transferred to video (colour, sound), 5 min 30 sec
Fredrik Værslev, Untitled, 2017, Primer, spray paint, acrylic, white spirit, cotton canvas on wooden stretcher, 283 × 190 cm
Installation View
Diamond Stingily Black Jesus 2015, Silkscreen print on XXXL Tall Tee
Installation View
Fredrik Værslev, Untitled 2017, Primer, spray paint, acrylic, white spirit, cotton canvas on wooden stretcher, 283 × 190 cm
Installation View
Installation View
Ryan Estep, Scale 6, 2017, Canvas, Fiberglass and Pigment, 125 × 145 × 18.5 cm
Installation View
Installation View
Ayan Farah, Untitled 1 (Stiched Indigo) 2017, Indigo and black clay on sun faded linen, 170 × 120 cm
Matias Faldbakken, tiled wheel barrow tray (Black and Yellow), 2017 68 × 86 × 30 cm
Installation View
Piotr Łakomy, Twin 2017, wooden doors, aluminum honeycomb, golf balls, paint, wire, aluminium, 183 × 85 × 15 cm each
Installation View
Installation View
Jonathan Binet, Untitled 2012-2017, wood, steel, canvas, spray paint, 183 × 150 × 6 cm
Installation View
Jonathan Binet, Untitled 2013-2017, 224 × 184 × 6 cm
Installation View
Installation View
Installation View
David Ostrowski, F (Freischwinger) 2017, acrylic and lacquer on canvas, wood, 241 × 191 cm
David Ostrowski, F (Painting of the day) 2017, acrylic, lacquer and cardboard on linen, wood, 241 × 191 cm
David Ostrowski, F (F) 2017, acrylic on canvas, wood, 241 × 191 cm
Installation View
Jean-Marie Appriou, Trouble, 2017, Aluminium, 300 × 170 × 60 cm
Installation View
Casper Forsberg, RUN FROM FUN FUN FROM RUN, 2015, Casted aluminium 264 × 136 × 4 cm
Installation View
Heimo Zobernig, Untitled 1989, Oil on canvas, 100 × 100 cm
Installation View
Installation View
Ed Atkins, How It’s Made, 2015, Digital film, colour, no sound, 19 hours 44 minutes
Installation View
Sergej Jensen, Neglige 2009, Stitched nettle, 100 × 80 cm
Installation View
Violet Dennison, Sick Building Syndrome 2017, The inside of an Elkay EZS8L wall mounted water cooler on silver-plated copper foil, 120 × 60 × 40 cm
Installation View

Exhibition Text

How It’s Made brings together twenty-three artists in the inaugural exhibition at the new Carl Kostyál gallery premises in Nacka Strand, Stockholm. It takes its title from the ongoing documentary television programme, How It’s Made, which is broadcast on Discovery Channel, revealing various industrial manufacturing process of everyday consumer items.

The exhibition presents a range of artworks in a variety of mediums that reflect upon numerous art movements and current trends in artistic practice to collectively demonstrate the performative potential of materials to actively disrupt and transform fixed cultural perceptions. Exploring artistic attitudes, methods and motivations towards formal, cultural, socio-political and technological approaches within contemporary art production.

It includes Ed Atkins 19hr durational video work How It’s Made (2016), which also takes its name from the TV programme and consists solely of appropriated footage. However, unlike the original, the outcome or the visibility of the end product is consistently withheld by Atkins, intentionally denying the viewer established or prescribed procedures of reception and consumption.

Interspersed throughout the gallery are a series of geometric sculptural interventions by Nina Canell; meticulously cast from gum, the works gradually collapse from their original embodiment and are reshaped by the architecture of the building. Fluidity and the shifting context of objects is further explored by Violet Dennison, whose contribution consists of a reconfigured industrial water cooler wall mounted onto silver plated copper foil. Once ubiquitous within U.S institutions, it’s protective surface is removed to reveal a complex, fragile and arguably obsolete set of working components that are contemplative of its economy at the time of manufacture.

This formally connects to artworks by Jonathan Binet, Ayan Farah and Sergej Jensen, whom consciously reveal the economy of their making by adding and subtracting existing materials, employing a reduced aesthetic language that traces the manipulation of their respective surfaces and original material purpose. It is also evidenced in Matias Faldbakken’s assisted readymade artwork of a crudely tiled car dashboard. A fundamental component found within all vehicles that have evolved from being a protective barrier for horse-drawn carriages to become a sophisticated modem for communication, now purposely undermined and rendered impotent by his application of a ceramic skin. Other featured readymade artworks are less conspicuously altered, such as Yngve Holen’s industrially produced CT Scanner casing that intrinsically links technology with the human desire for well-being. An earlier artwork that engages with questions about the influence of consumer culture and technology upon the individual is Lynn Hershman Leeson’s pioneering video work Lynn Turning into Roberta (1978), which documents her invention and subsequent fabrication of her fictional alter-ego Roberta Breitmore. The exhibition is composed from a range of materials that manifest as painting, sculpture and video, which are connected by the shared interests of artists working today.

The exhibition preview will be preceded on the 2 December 2017 by a new site specific performance entitled The Third Mind. It will feature an installation of artworks by David Ostrowski and Jean-Marie Appriou within an electronic music soundscape by Anthony Linell aka Abdulla Rashim.

 Text by Matt Williams