I wanna dance with somebody:
Lars Laumann
Introducing Vela Arbutina, Benjamin Alexander Huseby
and Rein Vollenga
2 April–7 May 2011
Groenewegje 136
2515 LR Den Haag
The Netherlands
+31 (0)70.3925359
info [at] west-denhaag.nl
www.west-denhaag.nl
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At the 2008 Berlin Biennale, Lars Laumann (1977, Norway) showed the video installation Berlinmuren, which became one of its main attractions. The video portrays the Swedish woman, Eija-Ritta Berliner-Mauer, who married the Berlin wall. Laumann displayed the film on a fallow piece of land where the wall (her husband) used to stand. Shut Up Child, This Ain’t Bingo is a documentary about the relationship between a Norwegian artist and an American prisoner on Death Row. Through telling both these stories, Laumann tries to impart something incomprehensible to the audience. Laumann’s creations are all about obsessions and fanatic behavior using the Internet, music, literature and film as both research and inspiration. Despite his almost subversive way of working, Laumann’s productions are accessible and touching. His work is evidence of his great empathy for ‘other’ ways of life and manages to make his preference for lunacy and curiosities become immediately recognizable for the viewer. Essential to Laumann’s work is the collaborations, community and friendships that both develop with his work and is also necessary to make them happen. This natural social structure that develops around Laumann’s work is the starting point for the exhibition I wanna dance with somebody where three close friends join him to show new collaborative works. Laumann, Arbutina, Huseby and Vollenga‘s process of creating this show is something entirely opposite to the old perception of the artist genius working alone on his masterpiece. Here instead a constant exchange of ideas is how the work materializes. For each of the three rooms, a new work is produced.
Vela Arbutina (1979, Switzerland) is a graphic designer, trained at the Gerrit Rietveld academy. With a creation of sound fragments, she and Laumann took part in the Unofficial Nobel Peace Prize Internet Exhibition (2010). Arbutina is co-editor and art director of the biannual magazine Girls like us and works as an independent designer in Amsterdam.
Benjamin Alexander Huseby (1978, Norway) works with photography and installation, often juxtaposing his somewhat disparate interests in esoteric science, natural history and counter culture. His dissemination of images and subjects are connected through an idiosyncratic visual language of forms and colours. Together with Laumann he has created a very personal video for the show, developed from their mutual obsessive interest in the fallen Warhol superstar Nico.
Rein Vollenga (1979, The Netherlands) creates sensuous, suggestive objects that can occasionally be worn as sculptural adornments. His highly imaginative sculptures show a fascination for the human body and have an aura of fetish. The ‘wearable sculptures’ have been commissioned by Paris fashion label Mugler, Lady Gaga and a range of other performers. His collaboration with Laumann for Galerie West will be a sculpture and video installation.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a new publication.
ISBN: 978-90-79917-15-0
