NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

9th of September - 9th of October 2022

 

If you take everyday life under a magnifying glass and examine the small daily aesthetic gifts and add great diligence, love and humor, you end up in the middle of Anne Langgaard's practice. It is the repetition, the small aids in today's routines and the really big questions that flow together in a stream of reinterpretations from Langgaard's hand.

 

In the exhibition 'Nothing Gold can Stay', the floor cloth is processed as a sculptural object. They are not stacked together ready to be put into place. They are used, thrown away, abandoned, you can almost smell the mixture of soap and dirt that has lain in a corner, long enough to get a faint earthy smell. Langgaard examines the folds of the floor cloth and processes, with sculpturally curious eyes, one of the everyday tasks - cleaning - which is left unfinished and forgotten. The floor cloths becomes a sculptural statement about the aesthetic and poetic potential of everyday life.

 

It is a recurring method in the works. That of recreating something familiar in other materials. In the exhibition 'Nothing Gold can Stay', the floor cloths are transformed into something fragile through the clay and into something exalted through the castings in aluminum and bronze. Frozen in time, the floor cloths speak with and against the exhibition's title; an attempt to capture a fleeting moment, with the awareness of the impossibility of doing so.

 

For the exhibition 'Nothing Gold can Stay' Langgaard has invited artist and curator Agnete Bertram to take part in the process leading up to the exhibition. This collaboration can be seen, among other things, through Bertram's staging of Langgaard's earlier works on the poster frieze in the welcome hall and by Bertram's artistic contribution on the billboard that hangs outside.

 

The sun sets every evening and yet the session gives something very special and magical every time. In the first conversation between curator Agnete Bertram and artist Anne Langgaard, Langgaard mentioned the idea of working with the sunset as the main theme of her exhibition. Bertram grabbed that idea and created a visual CV of several of Langgaard's previous works as an introduction to the artistic universe that meets the viewer in the exhibition room.

 

An upgraded doodle is what Agnete Bertram has taken as a starting point with her contribution to the exhibition's billboard. Bertram has been collecting ink drawings from blocks in art supply stores over a period of time. With these drawings and lines, she has created a digital collage that lies somewhere between children's drawings and graffiti tags. With the work, Bertram wants to contribute to the exhibition's basic mood of something playful and everyday unpretentious approach to life, as well as enter into a dialogue with the surrounding visual landscape.

 

Anne Langgaard studied BA Fine Art (Hons) at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London (2011-13) and lives and works in Copenhagen. She is committed to getting art out into contexts other than the traditional "white cube" and has worked with this, as well as for more diversity on the art scene, through the curatorial duo Walther&Langgaard (2016-2019) with visual artist Anna Walther. She has been part of Udstillingsstedet Sydhavn Station since January 2020, whose location means that there is a great plurality among the visitors. As a visual artist, she is examining the magical potential of everyday life, and she has exhibitions both in Denmark and abroad.

 

Agnete Bertram was educated in 2008 at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts and in 2018 at Politiken's School of Art Critics. She has worked to take on tasks on the art scene, including being the chairperson for billedkunst- og værkstedsrådet on Statens Værksteder for Kunst in 2020-2022, manager of the Ringsted Gallery in 2015-2017, and curator at Minuit Vernissage in 2017-2019. As a visual artist, she has exhibited both home and abroad, is part of Statens Kunstfonds collection and has received several honorary grants.

 

The exhibition is supported by Københavns Kommunes Råd for Visuel Kunst, 15. Juni Fonden, Kongens Enghave Lokaludvalg, Overretssagfører L. Zeuthens mindelegat. The posters and billboard are supported by Ny Carlsberg Foundation.