Waldersten and Bakker at Fargfabriken

Waldersten and Bakker at Fargfabriken

Färgfabriken - Centre for Art and Architecture

March 22, 2003

Waldersten and Bakker at Fargfabriken
22/03/2003 - 27/04/2003

Fargfabriken
Lovhplmsbrinken 1
S-117 43 Stockholm
Sweeden
tel. +46 8 6450707
fax +46 8 6455030

www.fargfabriken.se

Fargfabriken is proud to open two exhibitions:

Jesper Waldersten’s “A Black Line” in the main space and Conrad Bakkers
“Consumer Actions” in one of the project rooms.

image: Conrad Bakker

On March 22 Fargfabriken is proud to open two exhibitions: Jesper
Waldersten’s “A Black Line” in the main space and Conrad Bakkers
“Consumer Actions” in one of the project rooms.

Jesper Waldersten
A Black Line

The broader Swedish public is familiar with Jesper Waldersten primarily
through his drawings and illustrations in Dagens Nyheter, the country’s
main daily newspaper. Between 1999 and 2002, he worked for DN På Stan,
the paper’s weekly events and entertainment supplement (some of his work
there has been collected in a book, “Tack för senast din jävel!”); since
then he has been drawing for the paper’s weekend edition. He recently
received, for the second year running, the New York-based Society for
News Design Awards’ gold medal as best illustrator. Some weeks ago, his
first children’s book, “Godnattfnatt” (of which he is both writer and
illustrator), was published. Among much else, he has done CD covers,
illustrations for Månadsjournalen, a monthly magazine, and drawings for Berwaldhallen, a concert venue.

“Ett svart streck” is Jesper Waldersten’s first major
exhibition. All of the drawings are new, and done specifically for this occasion.
Färgfabriken will publish a 136-page book of the exhibition, with 60
drawings by Waldersten and a text by Färgfabriken’s curator, Jan Åman, of which the following is an excerpt:

“Jesper has set off again on his wanderings, but with slightly
different things in mind this time. He wanders alone and at feasts. He wanders
among isolated individuals, among couples and groups of figures. As he
is wont to. He sees closeness here, desperate isolation there. The humanly
inhuman. Melancholy, sex, drunkenness, brief joy, failure and dreams of
something else. Classic artistic themes. And that, I suppose, is what
Jesper Waldersten is about. He zaps his way through our times. He draws
faster than a computer remembers. And he does it in pursuit of the
classic domains of art.”

Conrad Bakker
Consumer Actions

“Consumer Actions”, an exhibition by the artist Conrad Bakker, opens at
Färgfabriken on March 22. Combining a certain acerbity with a subtle
humour, Bakker takes on today’s consumerist world. His works are
based on a kind of low-key, poetic guerrilla actions, usually perpetrated at
K-mart, one of the world’s biggest discount retail chains and the supreme
symbol of American shopping: he places copies of K-mart’s offerings on
store shelves, next to the real goods they imitate. These copies have
all the classic characteristics of art: they are unique objects, created by
the artist, and at the same time are fake versions of real goods.
Bakker photographs his objects next to their mass-produced models and then
exits the store, leaving them on the shelf. What happens to them after that is anyone’s guess. Bakker himself has written that,

“As one is looking at the photographs of the event, one might imagine
that a store customer or even a stockperson could pick them up.
Theoretically one could even walk out of the store with the object and
not be charged with shoplifting since it is not a ‘real’
thing. Or perhaps they end up in the lunchroom of the store as an object of
curiosity. I guess I am only really interested in the initial subtle
and subversive action: what it means to insert something obviously fake
and constructed into the real and how that might challenge the conditions
and expectations of the real.”

For his exhibition at Färgfabriken, besides showing documentation of
his K-mart actions, Conrad Bakker will produce works specifically for
Färgfabriken and the Stockholm context. Among other things, he will
make copies of Tobias Bernstrup’s CD, “Re-animate me” and
of Maurizio Cattelan’s “Permanent Food” magazine. These
“works” will be placed by Färgfabriken’s entrance and in the bookshop, as well as at
several other selected locations in Stockholm.

On March 28, in connection with Conrad Bakker’s exhibition,
Färgfabriken will host a seminar dealing with consumer patterns, stimulus
progression, behavioural patterns and other shopping-related issues. The seminar,
beginning at 6 pm, will be open to the public.

“Consumer Actions” is the result of an initial contact
between Färgfabriken and Creative Capital, New York. Its production has
received the support of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where
Conrad Bakker teaches. The exhibition will be mounted in parallel with
Jesper Waldersten’s “A Black Line”, in Färgfabriken’s main hall.

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March 22, 2003

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