Asbjørn Skou / Hauntings
Tranen Contemporary Art Center
Gentofte Hovedbibliotek
Ahlmanns Allé 6
2900 Hellerup Denmark
June 20th – August 8th 2015
Tranen Contemporary Art Center
Gentofte Hovedbibliotek
Ahlmanns Allé 6
2900 Hellerup Denmark
June 20th – August 8th 2015
Hauntings is Tranen’s last exhibition in the seasonal programme 3D to Infinity in which dimensions of time and space collapse. Hauntings is created by the Danish artist Asbjørn Skou with the Gentofte Main Library, drawn by Henning Larsens Architects, in mind. The building is the focal point of the exhibition.In Skou’s black punk-formalistic examinations of space the ‘library archive’ collapses in an imagined future – like an ancient ruin waiting to happen. The artist is interested in how to view the ghosts of architecture, and thereby also culture, in a large perspective that extends beyond the here and now. Skou’s works are dominated by non-biological materials strewn scenically after the collapse has occurred. The installations are settings void of human presence, withdrawn from everyday use and life. Skou’s artistic practice draws upon the theoretical direction Object Oriented Ontology, which detaches things from human optics and positions them free from the human sensory apparatus. What is the future and what is past not important, – what is real and what is fiction is not significant. All matter is present in the same expanded space-time.
The main focus is on the wider perspective, as the O.O.O. theoretican Timothy Morton puts it: “I start the engine of my car. Liquified dinosaur bones burst into flame. I walk up a chalky hill. Billions of ancient pulverized undersea creatures grip my shoes. I breathe. Bacterial pollution from some Archean cataclysm fills my alveoli—we call oxygen. I type this sentence. Mitochondria, anaerobic bacteria hiding in my cells from the Oxygen Catastrophe, spur me with energy. They have their own DNA. I hammer a nail. In consistent layers of ore, bacteria deposited the iron in Earth’s crust. I turn on the TV and see snow. A sliver of snow is a trace of the Cosmic Microwave Background left over from the Big Bang. I walk on top of the life-forms. The oxygen in our lungs is bacterial outgassing. Oil is the result of some dark, secret collusion between rocks and algae and plankton millions and millions of years in the past. When you look at oil you’re looking at the past. Hyperobjects are time-stretched to such a vast extreme that they become almost impossible to hold in mind.” – Hyperobjects