Galleri Erik Steen

JAN FREUCHEN

F.A.Q.

 

26.08.2010 - 26.09.2010

We are pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Jan Freuchen – his second solo show at our gallery.

In the middle of the gallery lies a heap of discarded exercise machines. The grey-painted metal frames are gradually being overgrown by a kind of weed that turns out to be bunches of black and white headphones. Out of these, we can here birds repetitively singing fragments from different Hitchcock films. In this and the other works in the exhibition, some kind of rigid and unbending structure (the construction framework of a building, blackboards from a classroom) is confronted with some kind of expressive gesture or another; the conventional structures that surround us in our everyday lives encounter a seemingly intuitive, free phenomenon, which may stem from other spheres, from hypnosis or from intense dreams. Freuchen's works appear as a series of questions posed in a repetitive and almost manic way in an attempt to unite these too conflicting idioms. The title of the exhibition – Frequently Asked Questions – underlines how this dichotomy has been a core issue in our approach to modern art history. Traditionally, the expressive gesture has been perceived as a liberating reaction to a constricted form. In Freuchen's work, it is far from clear whether the first idiom is a precondition for the other, or whether the opposite could just as well be the case.

Jan Freuchen was born in 1979 and is a graduate from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts and the State Academy of Fine Art in Frankfurt-am-Main. Works by Jan Freuchen have in recent years been included in exhibitions such as Momentum in Moss, Norway (2009), Jan Freuchen. Jone Kvie. Josefine Lyche at Sørlandet Art Museum in Kristiansand, Norway (2009), ev a in Limerick, Ireland (2009), Lights on at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2008), the Sculpture Biennial at the Vigeland Museum in Oslo (2008) and the 1st Athens Biennial, Destroy Athens in Athens (2007).

On the opening day of the exhibition, 26th August, Jan Freuchen's new book Retreat Center will also be launched (Lord Jim Publishing, 228 pages). The book will be distributed by Torpedo, Oslo, and is published in collaboration with Galleri Erik Steen.

Photographs of Freuchen's works are available on request and will also be published on our web site www.eriksteen.no as of the opening day.

For more information, please contact Erik Steen or Nina Paus on telephone
47 22 55 09 54.

Next exhibition: Harald Fenn, opening on 30th September.