Dina El Kaisy Friemuth and Sóley Ragnarsdóttir

For the culmination of INTRO, the individually tailored development program for young artists involving a full year’s close collaboration and mentoring, O—Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art proudly presents two major new solo exhibitions by 2021 selected artists Dina El Kaisy Friemuth and Sóley Ragnarsdóttir.

Dina El Kaisy Friemuth: No History At All
November 6—December 31, 2021

Taking its cue from writer and theorist Ariella Aïsha Azoulay’s recent book Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (2019), Dina El Kaisy Friemuth’s first institutional solo exhibition sets out to critically investigate the Western imperialistic power structures implicated in the act of history writing and archiving.

Presenting a new body of work—including video, statement posters, comics, and a large façade banner—the exhibition unfolds around a monumental floor carpet decorated with poetic and political quotes. The centerpiece of the exhibition is El Kaisy Friemuth’s new video work House of KA (2021). Filmed in the Neues Museum, Berlin and starring the artist and their closest relatives looking at Egyptian artifacts that were stolen through colonization, El Kaisy Friemuth’s film resuscitates the lived history of the artifacts through their mother’s stories.

El Kaisy Friemuth’s practice often revolves around creating conversational environments, centering queer and non-white voices, and decolonial and institutional critiques. Furthermore, the exhibition presents a series of panel discussions and talks taking place on the carpet. Here, El Kaisy Friemuth makes space for additional voices, including The Union, a newly founded union for racialized cultural workers in Denmark.

Dina El Kaisy Friemuth (b. 1988) lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen. They hold an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen and UDK in Berlin (2016) and are a co-founder of the artist collectives FCNN (Feminist Collective with No Name) and D.N.A. together with Anita Beikpour and Neda Sanai. El Kaisy Friemuth is a part of the Berlin Programme for Artists 2021–23 and has lately exhibited at Gasworks (London), the 11th Berlin Biennale, Ariel (Copenhagen), 1-1 (Basel), Bergen Kunsthall, and 55-11 Gallery (New York).

Sóley Ragnarsdóttir: Organizing Principles
November 6—December 31, 2021

A hyper-ornamented artistic universe emerging from a sculptural approach to painting unfolds in Sóley Ragnarsdóttir’s first institutional solo exhibition. With large-scale paintings and mobiles, amber, napkins, and seashells, Ragnarsdóttir presents a seductive environment that has evolved from her newly established life in a small village in rural Thy, by the North Sea. Life among amber hunters, fishermen, and surfers has made a profound impact on the artist’s unique visual language.

In the exhibition Organizing Principles, Ragnarsdóttir directs our eyes towards the life-giving symbiosis that can occur when otherwise separate materials, stories, and worlds meet and entangle. Her works are made from layered synthetic and natural materials: acrylic, epoxy, shells, amber, and ocean-blunted pieces of glass adorn canvases as well as napkins, boat and surfboard materials, and wallpapers. With a pictorial language that extends from the canvases to the walls and frames, the artist invites us to step into a fascinating, aestheticized world flirting with kitsch and drawing lines to the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as to her Icelandic origins. The decorative tradition of handicraft has long figured as inferior to Fine Arts, but Ragnarsdóttir redirects attention to the artistic qualities of decoration as something valid and precious within the scope of contemporary art.

Sóley Ragnarsdóttir (b. 1991, Denmark/Iceland) holds a MFA from Städelschule, Frankfurt (2014–19) under Amy Sillman, Monika Baer, and Nikolas Gambaroff, and has exhibited at Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Historisches Museum in Frankfurt, Jean Claude Maier in Frankfurt, and Kunstforum in Darmstadt.

O—Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art
O—Overgaden is one of the leading non-profit contemporary art institutions in Denmark with an irreverent program of emerging local and international voices, displaying around eight new exhibition productions and a plethora of events each year from its location in the heart of Copenhagen.

For press and images contact Line Brædder at lb@overgaden.org