Karl Holmqvist, #FLU$$CH, in conversation with Pati Hertling

Bar Laika is very pleased to present a new work by Karl Holmqvist: #FLU$$CH (29 minutes, 2017), with an introduction and Q&A by Pati Hertling.

Holmqvist’s new animation mixes spoken and written language in different patterns and temporalities—a kind of linguistic assault, an actual brainwash perhaps, not to make people subservient or stupid, but to clean their minds and have them be open to new possible meaning.

Karl Holmqvist is known for using a wide range of formats—poetry readings, installation, and sculpture–to bring out the primal qualities of language. He is one of a current generation of artists working with language and text as a sculptural or performative material. Holmqvist says his work is meant to spark the creative process in the viewer, seeing his art and poetry as a translation of the complexities of contemporary life. He blends poetry with pop music and his texts, composed of anecdotes as famous as they are diverse, explore the theme of communication and language. For example, Read Dear (2016) is a text-based series in an intimate installation of digitally printed canvases, graffiti, and concrete poetry. Together, the works unpack the many operations of language, how it can occupy space and provoke “invisible images” within memory and imagination.

Pati Hertling is a curator and art lawyer. In 2018 she was appointed first Deputy Director at the Performance Space, New York. Hertling has organized various independent curatorial projects, including Evas Arche und der Feminist, a salon series in Berlin and New York.

For more information, contact laika@e-flux.com.