Laura Lima
The Naked Magician
4 June–20 September 2015
x-rummet, SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Soelvgade 48-50
1307 Copenhagen K
Denmark
The Naked Magician moves in
When Brazilian artist Laura Lima presents her first-ever solo exhibition in Denmark this summer, she will do so by staging a huge, workshop-like installation in which a naked magician moves in.
Flea market finds, textiles, instruments, books, bric-a-brac and bits and bobs from near and far will make up the large, immersive piece created by Laura Lima for the x-rummet venue at the SMK. The teeming mass of accumulated objects and materials will form a kind of chaotic workshop as well as more domestic spaces such as a kitchen and bedroom. Visitors are free to roam and explore this strange universe.
Inside the workshop, visitors might bump into “The Naked Magician” pottering about, constantly creating new objects and making changes to the many materials found there. Wearing a suit with the arms cut off, the magician will add an element of unpredictability to the exhibition.
Since the mid nineties, Laura Lima constructs situations by placing the bodies of living things (humans, animals and plants) in unexpected relations with objects and spaces, challenging the accepted meaning of words and concepts and even questioning categories such as “performance” or “installation.”
In The Naked Magician she continues to suspend the expectations we hold of the world around us and of how our actions and behaviour affect others and our shared everyday existence. The Naked Magician is also about how art and the creative process can be like an alchemist’s workshop, creating something out of virtually nothing.
Laura Lima was born in 1971 in Brazil. She lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and holds degrees in philosophy as well as art. In 2003 Lima was among the founders of A Gentil Carioca, an exhibition venue for contemporary art based in Rio de Janeiro; she still helps operate it. Lima has contributed to a wide range of group exhibitions and has presented solo shows at several major museums and institutions in North America, South America and Europe; e.g. at MUAC, Mexico City, the Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires; Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Chapter Art Center, Cardiff, Wales.
Other versions of The Naked Magician have been presented at Casa França Brasil in Rio de Janeiro in 2011, at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich in 2013 and at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm in 2014. Every time the project travels to a new location, objects and materials from the previous versions are brought along to be supplemented by more materials collected at the new site.
Last year Lima received the prestigious Dutch art award The Bonnefanten Award for Contemporary Art 2014.
The exhibition is produced in collaboration with Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm and Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich.
x-rummet is the SMK’s experimental venue for contemporary and has existed since 2001.
x-rummet is supported by the Obel Family Foundation.
