Jacob Dahlgren -- Forward, Back, Right, Left
William Kentridge
+ROOM-ROOM
Ann LislegaardJacob Dahlgren -- Forward, Back, Right, Left
East Gallery
January 10, 2009 – April 19, 2009
The Henry Art Gallery is pleased to welcome Jacob Dahlgren to the Pacific Northwest. In January 2009, the Henry will open an exhibition of installation, sculpture, and video works by the Swedish artist, his first museum exhibition on the West Coast.
Dahlgren is a painter, sculptor, and conceptual artist who works to a large extent with unconventional materials. The artist finds abstraction in everyday objects, which he employs to create dynamic interactive installations and performances. When arranged, the individual objects lose their intended function, their original value, and become part of something completely new.
The centerpiece of this exhibition is a wall of yellow-and-black dartboards from the collection of Leslie and Dale Chihuly, which viewers are encouraged to use. Dahlgren first realized the dartboard installation I, the world, things, life in 2004 for the Norrköpings Konstmuseum in Sweden. Since then it was also shown in the Nordic Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Along with experimenting with such artistic styles of the twentieth century as Constructivism, Minimal Art, and Pop Art, Dahlgren also quotes from the Op Art movement. At a distance, the wall of dartboards dissolves into a surface that resembles a giant rotational field.