Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 00
Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 01
Henrik Olesen
2 May 2019 -
29 June 2019

opening reception on Thursday,
2 May, 6-8 pm

Henrik Olesen
2 May - 29 June 2019

 

Opening Thursday, 2 May, 6-8 pm

 

Forms in debt: the cast of a corner, or of a milk carton, owes its material presence to having performed a form. Neither sculpture (because not autonomous) nor object (because derived), it is unworked and hard to place, a quasi-entity that has bred out of positive form and now plays the latter against itself. It is both the artwork and its double. Teeming with displaced agency, it bends time out of shape to scale space for accrued meanings.

 

Unborn after-forms, there is something about them that is totally kinky, what with their staunch refusal to do it in the right place. They oscillate through semiotic and embodied registers and blast figuration as that which can be known, named, affirmed. They are restless things, or meta-nervous; built on the always social basis of nervousness. This plastic restlessness - this socio-psycho-neuro-kinetics - is what Catherine Malabou calls a “structure of transformation and destruction of presence and the present.” A conductor for the contradictions of the day, tuned in to norms and givens, the speed and the mood of things, it performs how culture strives to synchronize subjectivity and charge each of us with its reproduction.

 

…A synchronization that is (meant to be?) felt as stress, like coming too soon or wading in too late, in anticipations, delays, and repetitions. Such misalignment can be mobilized for our own purposes, though. As a testo junkie put it, flatly, “It is fundamental not to recognize oneself.” It is when we do not recognize ourselves in our representations that the possibility for transforming reality appears. Dis-identification, destabilization… let go, and exits may emerge from dead-ends of political reflection.Politics is a struggle against selfishness, about what is good for the other, and for the self as other.

 

Even though the referents for the works are often much more specific than their ephemerality lets on, you will look in vain for certainties to swear by. Their undoing of origins, identifications and superstructures has the effect to make conflict stick to them like flypaper: there is power in every nook and cranny, and so power critique and countermoves too - on the milk carton, in the screws that hold the brackets… There are no vacuums or oases here, as ultramundane consumer items are rendered unfamiliar such as to un-position them strategically against all the neo-liberal noise. It is a play of everyday excess that confronts the simultaneous shattering and control of the dimensions of experience, that pincer movement of late bureaucratic capitalism.

 

A non-medium, boxes have a different materialization than the object and a different conceptualization than the text. Olesen’s are trans-objects, to borrow Hélio Oiticica’s term (with Olesen clearly being the more agit povera of the two). The trans-object is at the same time a sub-object and an extra-object that opens up to a subversive micro-level with the energies of its own unmaking: it is a fold or a pocket for social content, receiving warm bodies, or for gestating events, disappearing redundant images, and so a site for dealing with opposites that may turn out not to be any. The box is as good a Trojan horse as any from which to undo categorical hygiene. The glass box - a messy, sensual ice cube that raises the question of what glues it all together - catches what cannot be held, shadows and darkness, the whiteness of your ghosts, and all those other entities that refuse to be imaged. It is for bodies that can be held by neither a uniform nor a coffin. Flipping container and contained, the see-through and the opaque, they are like Maurice Blanchot’s paradoxical definition of Marxism as “answers without questions”: the giving of a name to what previously had none, a raising of questions where there was no way of asking, a seeing beyond the trap that is the visual realm. Theory, or its sensibility, begins with the suspension of causality and socialization.

 

Producing movements that make you some-un-body, the works open up beyond the subject-form. In nervous things and luminescent bodies, everyday space becomes plasmatic - energized, moldable, conductive. Gateways galore… They do open up to transcendence, but not to bliss or resolution - when did a rabbit hole ever do so unambiguously? The door is a subtractive protocol: here the world can be reinvented at the site of its disappearance, in a void for attunement to exit from what already exists to what is not yet imagined. Continuous othering.

 

Lars Bang Larsen, 2019

 

 

 

Galerie Buchholz presents a new exhibition by Henrik Olesen (b. 1967, Denmark; lives and works in Berlin). This is the artist’s eighth exhibition with the gallery, and his second in our New York space. In June of this year, a retrospective of Olesen’s work will be held at the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, on view through October. Recent institutional solo exhibitions by Olesen include Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin (2018); The Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2017); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2012); Malmö Konsthall (2011); Kunstmuseum Basel (2011); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011). Recent group exhibitions include “Post Institutional Distress Disorder”, Kunsthal Aarhus (2018); “Stories of Almost Everyone”, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); The 33rd São Paulo Biennial (2018); The 32nd São Paulo Biennial (2016); “The Keeper”, New Museum, New York (2016); “Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner”, Centre Pompidou, Paris and Whitney Museum of American Art (2016); and the 55th Venice Biennial (2013). His work is included in institutional collections such as Tate London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie, Warsaw.

 

 

 

Henrik Olesen
2 May - 29 June 2019

 

1.

 

Glass Box Centered

 

Glass Box High

 

Glass Box Low

 

Red Square

 

Madhouse

 

Madhouse

 

Corner

 

2.

 

Milk

 

Festival of the Unconscious: Plugs, Meat, Triangle

 

Festival of the Unconscious: Helicopter, Airplane, Ship

 

Festival of the Unconscious: Warped Forest

 

Festival of the Unconscious: Death Ship of No Port

 

Red Square

 

Festival of the Unconscious: Roger Gilbert-Lecomte

 

Festival of the Unconscious: Orange Wall

 

A Forest

 

Door

 

Corner

 

3.

 

Red Corner

 

Door

 

Milk

 

Milk

 

Milk

 

Milk

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 02
Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 03
Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 04

Henrik Olesen

2 May 2019 -
29 June 2019
opening reception on Thursday,
2 May, 6-8 pm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 05

Henrik Olesen

“Glass Box Centered”, 2019
glass, silicone, glue, metal brackets
50 x 62 x 21 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 06

Henrik Olesen

“Glass Box Centered”, 2019
glass, silicone, glue, metal brackets
50 x 62 x 21 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 07

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 08

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 09

Henrik Olesen

“Corner”, 2019
epoxy resin, metal, silicone
103 x 100 x 4 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 10

Henrik Olesen

“Corner”, 2019
epoxy resin, metal, silicone
103 x 100 x 4 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 11

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 12

Henrik Olesen

“Glass Box High”, 2019
glass, glue, metal brackets
41.5 x 62 x 20 cm
&
“Glass Box Low”, 2019
glass, glue, metal brackets
40.5 x 62 x 20 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 13

Henrik Olesen

“Glass Box High”, 2019
glass, glue, metal brackets
41.5 x 62 x 20 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 14

Henrik Olesen

“Glass Box Low”, 2019
glass, glue, metal brackets
40.5 x 62 x 20 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 15

Henrik Olesen

“Red Square”, 2019
aluminum, enamel, hardware, tape
dimensions: 205.7 x 205.7 x 5.1 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 16

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 17

Henrik Olesen

“Madhouse”, 2019
glass, acrylic, glue, metal brackets
26 x 56.5 x 24.5 cm
&
“Madhouse”, 2019
glass, acrylic, glue, metal brackets
26 x 56.5 x 24.5 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 18

Henrik Olesen

“Madhouse”, 2019
glass, acrylic, glue, metal brackets
26 x 56.5 x 24.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 19

Henrik Olesen

“Madhouse”, 2019
glass, acrylic, glue, metal brackets
26 x 56.5 x 24.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 20

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 21

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 22

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Plugs, Meat, Triangle”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 23

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Plugs, Meat, Triangle”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 24

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Plugs, Meat, Triangle”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 25

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Helicopter, Airplane, Ship”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 26

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Helicopter, Airplane, Ship”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 27

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Helicopter, Airplane, Ship”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 28

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Warped Forest”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32.5 x 43 x 36 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 29

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Warped Forest”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32.5 x 43 x 36 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 30

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Warped Forest”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32.5 x 43 x 36 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 31

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Death Ship of No Port”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, prints on paper
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 32

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Death Ship of No Port”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, prints on paper
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 33

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Death Ship of No Port”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, prints on paper
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 34

Henrik Olesen

“Red Square”, 2019
aluminum, enamel, hardware, tape
dimensions: 205.7 x 205.7 x 5.1 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 35

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 36

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Roger Gilbert-Lecomte”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 37

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Roger Gilbert-Lecomte”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 38

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Roger Gilbert-Lecomte”, 2019
silkscreen on wood, acrylic, lacquer, print on paper, plexiglas
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 39

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Orange Wall”, 2019
wood, acrylic, lacquer, paper
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 40

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Orange Wall”, 2019
wood, acrylic, lacquer, paper
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 41

Henrik Olesen

“Festival of the Unconscious: Orange Wall”, 2019
wood, acrylic, lacquer, paper
32 x 39 x 32.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 42

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 43

Henrik Olesen

“Door”, 2019
print on paper on metal door, hardware
203.2 x 94 x 7.6 cm
&
“A Forest”, 2019
16 collages on paper, 2 silkscreens and 14 laserjet prints
each 29.7 x 21 cm
overall: 68.8 x 320 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 44

Henrik Olesen

“A Forest”, 2019
16 collages on paper, 2 silkscreens and 14 laserjet prints
each 29.7 x 21 cm
overall: 68.8 x 320 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 45

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 46

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 47

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 48

Henrik Olesen

“Corner”, 2019
epoxy resin, metal, silicone
103 x 110 x 4.5 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 49

Henrik Olesen

“Corner”, 2019
epoxy resin, metal, silicone
103 x 110 x 4.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 50

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 51

Henrik Olesen

“Milk”, 2019
epoxy resin
22.9 x 8 x 7 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 52

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 53

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 54

Henrik Olesen

“Milk”, 2019
epoxy resin
23 x 7.5 x 7 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 55

Henrik Olesen

“Milk”, 2019
epoxy resin
22 x 8 x 8.5 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 56

Henrik Olesen

“Milk”, 2019
epoxy resin, acrylic, marker on tape
22 x 7 x 8 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 57

Henrik Olesen

“Milk”, 2019
epoxy resin
29 x 6.8 x 6.7 cm

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 58

Henrik Olesen

installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 59

Henrik Olesen

“Red Corner”, 2019
epoxy resin, metal, silicone
102 x 110 x 4 cm
installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2019

Olesen - New York 2019 — Henrik Olesen — Exhibitions — Galerie Buchholz — Image 60

Henrik Olesen

“Red Corner”, 2019
epoxy resin, metal, silicone
102 x 110 x 4 cm