Overgaden presents Sonja Lillebæk Christensen: Nothing Else Matters, open through 5 June 2011.
In this extensive solo exhibition, Sonja Lillebæk Christensen presents a series of installations, several of which were specifically created for the characteristic premises of Overgaden. With images in a huge scale insistently occupying the space, the viewer is drawn into works of widely differing character in terms of narrative and form. Using slides, photo wallpaper, HD video and YouTube clips, leaps are created between a shipwrecked Portuguese sailor, a fictional crime scene and a sampled male universe with roaring truck engines and heavy metal.
Sonja Lillebæk Christensen Rygerum, Oringe Sindssygehospital, Vordingborg, Danmark (1907-1996), 2011. 60×60 mm dias.
Despite the absence of a clear theme, a context nonetheless arises. All of the works confront us with a wondering, observing gaze, which creates uncertainty about what is seen. In documentary form, Lillebæk Christensen highlights things that are normally overlooked or considered ‘uninteresting.’
In an intimate and sometimes quirky and humorous visual language, Lillebæk Christensen opens up the possibility of re-reading our stereotypical ideas about our fellow human beings and our surroundings. An example is the video work Gerningsstedet II (Crime Scene II) from 2009, in which she recycles classic detective story elements to puncture the media-created criminal mythology surrounding the South Harbour area of Copenhagen. Reality and fiction are woven into one another in a tension-filled suspense that never culminates in a dramatic climax, but instead progressively undermines the premises of the action itself. In the exhibition, Sonja Lillebæk Christensen raises questions about the nature of narrative. What is required to create a story? What do we expect from it? And what stories can be constructed at all? Through these issues, she touches on society’s dominant perceptions and power relationships—but without identifying and criticizing these from a biased and comfortable position.
Overgaden.
Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17
DK-1414 Copenhagen K
Tel. +45 3257-7273
Web: www.overgaden.org