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SOLKORSET


Solkorset was a group of artists, who in the years 1986-91 made a number of very large interior installtions, first of all in connection with various exhibitions in Aarhus, Denmark, at Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark and in Groningen, Netherlands (invited by Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik). The Group consisted of five artists: Robin Lybecher, Kim Grønborg, Marianne Jørgensen, Hans E. Madsen og Jesper Rasmussen.

Solkorset experimented with radical and unusual methods and systems within the work process - for a certain period they worked entirely on a collective basis, where all five artists executed the same work of art together. The Group only made interior installations, that is installations created for specific rooms within a limited space of time.

The interior installations were often very large and could have a heavy, physical appearance in whic a lot of objects and materials from the surplus stocks of modern society. The installations thematized varios topics as the growth- and consumer society, and man and technology in a aesthetic context






Dinosaur


Selected installations made by Solkorset:


Dinosaur
Deutschland, Kunstnernes Hus, Aarhus, Denmark, march 1988

The installation was the second part in a series of five installations which formed the exhibition project Deutschland. The five installations succeeded each other in the same exhibition space, one week each, and the same materials and objects were reused in all the installations.

The dinosaur skeleton is a comparatively exact reconstruction based on anatomic diagrams. Accurate in dimensions and proportions, in the number of vertebrae and bones, but not in the choice of materials, which were mostly empty packing-cases, plastic containers, and tin cans, etc. The work process impelled a change of role from artist to paleontologist, and the solution was contained in the anatomic diagrams. Although there were enough bones for three or four skeletons, only one was required - the one that would correspond most accurately with the diagrams. It goes without saying that any processing of the materials was out of the question - a paleontologist does not saw the bones apart to make them fit, just as he would never paint them to make them seem more convincing. The skeleton measures barely 20 metres from head to tail and nearly four metres at the tallest over the shoulders.



Guillotine


Guillotine
Container TV, Botanical Gardens, Aarhus, Denmark, september 1989

The instalation was a part of the project Container TV, where nine interior installations were made inside containers. A formation of 18 containers were placed in a park and various videos forms part of the installations.

Guillotine is an enlarged version of a guillotine - about 11 metres long - reconstructed with the materials normally used in guillotine manufacturing. A heavy sheet of iron, cut across diagonally and given a sharpened edge is mounted as a large cutting blade. Along the inside of the guillotine posts - two long, solid wooden joists - a metal groove is inserted, apparently to make sure the blade runs smoothly up and down. The entire ton heavy guillotine has been jammed into the container at an angle, from the floor near the entrance to the far ceiling with no room for passage along the sides. Thus, when the spectator steps into the room, he or she will constantly be within cutting distance of the blade. If released while someone is standing at the entrance, the blade will cut at foot level. If the person moves to the centre of the container it will go directly through the stomach, and at the back of the room the throat will suffer. Directly below the blade a video monitor is placed at such an angle and in such a position that spectators must stand with their throats uncomfortably close to the blade in order to get a proper view of the picture on the screen.


Guillotine Slangekredsløbet
Sektion, Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark, september 1990

The installation was the first in a sequence of three installations made in three following rooms at the exhibition Sektion.

Slangekredsløbet (The Tube Circulation) takes human anatomy, blood circulation, and the vital organs as its point of departure. The diagram used in building up the tube system was an anatomic atlas. There are two pumping systems: a large one, corresponding with the blood circulation system of veins and arteries, through which water is pumped; and a smaller one, corresponding with the abdominal and intestinal system, through which oil circulates. Valves, pumps, and containers are mounted in the centres that correspond with various internal human organs. These centres are situated on platforms mounted at different levels in the scaffolding framework; lowest at the one end and highest at the other. A hymen of white plastic foil covers the walls; a membrane which lets in light from the large windows, and maintains a protective hold on the heat. As the exhibition was held during the warm season, room temperatures rose to relatively high levels, giving the room a hot-house-like atmosphere at times.


Dissektion Dissektion
Sektion, Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark, september 1990

The installation was the second in a sequence of three installations made in three following rooms at the exhibition Sektion.

Dissektion consists of five dissecting tables separated by three movable screens. On the tables there are car motors, gear boxes, and various other motor parts. The objects have been dissected, cut up and taken apart with different implements such as grinders, hacksaws, blowtorches, chisels, etc. Everything is left as though work was temporarily interrupted, and nothing has been removed from the tables. Each artist had been working at his or her own table with different tools and motor parts like a pathologist or autopsist, trying, by dissecting it, to disclose the inner construction, the internal anatomy of the motor. Everything was abandoned wherever it happened to be at that final moment. The gist of this interior installation is not so much the motor parts themselves, lying on the tables, but more the remains of the work process: the motor oil spilled over the tables during the dissecting oper-ations, running down onto the floor, where sawdust had been spread out with the exact purpose of absorbing it; the numerous footprints in criss-cross patterns in the damp, filthy sawdust under the tables; the thin grey layer of metal dust, mostly aluminium, covering all the objects in the room and originating from the hour-long cutting of heavy grinders. It is, in other words, the work process itself that is exhibited - as a performance where the audience enters when the play is over.


Eksploderende personbil 231/Eksploderet Personbil
Noordkunst, Groningen, Netherlands, oktober 1991

231/Eksploderet Personbil (231/Exploded Car) is an interior installation constructed as a scaffolding framework that covers the entire exhibition space. The construction consists exclusively of vertical and horizontal lines at right angles, forming a great number of cubic areas, with 2 metres long sides. The cubic areas are distributed as follows: 11 areas form the length of the construction, 7 areas the bredth and 3 areas the height - a total of 231 areas. The framework is a three-dimensional system of coordinates defining the interior space available to the installation from floor to ceiling. An entire car - a Ford Granada, V6 with a 2.3 liter motor - is mounted inside the construction. The car has been dissembled into precisely 231 separate parts with one part mounted in each cubic area. The car parts are distributed within the construction as they would be in an exploded diagram. In other words, the parts that were originally connected when the car was intact are now arranged directly next to one another in the framework.

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