DITTE EJLERSKOV
JOHAN FURÅKER
CERES’ SOLAR SECRET
20 JANUARY – 18 FEBRUARY 2024
REVIEWED BY
KONSTEN.NET
6 FEBRUARY 2024
From ancient times to an uncertain future
Each epoch dreams of the next.
Ulf Peter Hallberg
They live together, their studios are adjacent to each other and now they exhibit in a duo show. However, Ditte Ejlerskov and Johan Furåker do not create art together. They look back on art history and interpret it in their own way. In this exhibition, their works engage in a poetic dialogue with each other as well as with the past.
The interest in Classical Antiquity has taken on different guises in Ditte Ejlerskov’s art. This time she starts from the sculpture Diadumenos (“diadem–bearer”) by Polykleitos (circa 460–420 BC), one of the foremost sculptors of the High Classical period. Polykleitos depicted the Greek athlete naked, when after having won a competition, he raises his arms to tie a ribbon of victory around his head.
With a determined artistic gesture, Ditte Ejlerskov breathes new life into Diadumenos who, despite tradition, becomes a powerful and victorious woman. In earlier works, Ditte Ejlerskov paraphrased the Roman marble replica of a Hellenistic bronze depicting male wrestlers in close combat. In her work, the men have been transformed into two women who in turn represent the so–called love hormone oxytocin and its direct opposite – adrenaline. These two substances cannot exist in the body at the same time, which means that their relationship consists of a constant battle.
The characteristic feature of Ditte Ejlerskov’s aesthetic expression is her ability to oscillate between the abstract and the figurative in an effortless way. Occasionally this happens within the same image. Stories, spiritual references, and optical effects work together.
In Diadumene Interfered, layers of organized strips of canvas appear both as an abstract pattern and as a concrete grid that shields the viewer from the oversized face behind it. Different visual languages are intertwined. Each layer is complete in itself. Yet they nourish each other. Different canvases are laid layer upon layer and shine through each other in an interactive play. Instead of concealing like a filter, they emphasize each other. Playful and enigmatic at the same time.
The abstract is refined in Ditte Ejlerskov’s meditative suite Dream Gradient Paintings. Different colour tones are seamlessly woven together. The seemingly reduced form is so rich in nuance that there is almost something spiritual about it. The images go back to the ancient idea of how different colours affect the human psyche. Like wordless fantasies, these works fascinate with their limitlessness, where the gaze is thrown into a depth with nothing to hold on to. Time stands still as if the past and the future merged into a layered field of colour.
Johan Furåker’s visual stories are often based on real but strange lives and eccentric characters. Among others, Johan Furåker has portrayed Gabriele d’Anunnzio (the decadent poet and ultra–nationalist, whom the Italian fascists in the 1920s and 1930s perceived as their predecessor) and Albert Dadas (the compulsive traveller with a morbid need to constantly leave without knowing who he was and why he travelled). In a series of paintings, he has depicted motifs from Trajan’s Column, inaugurated in Rome 113 AD. In the works, which can also expand in the room and be displayed as sculptural installations, Johan Furåker alludes to theatre and film scenography. The carved paintings can be placed on the wall or freely on a table or floor. The visual expression is reminiscent of stripped–down sets in director Wes Anderson’s characteristic visual language, where reality becomes a surreal performance with props and costume changes in front of the viewer.
Johan Furåker works with replicas of replicas. The excitement is created by showing classic works of art in a new, not necessarily flattering, light. Ceres, the ancient goddess of grain and fertility, reminds you of the circle of life and death, and the multi–layered mythological stories that feel both obsolete and startingly current. In another work, Johan Furåker paraphrases Emmanuel Frémiet’s (1824–1920) gilded sculpture Renomée des Arts, which was mounted on Pont Alexandre III’s bridge in Paris in the end of late 19th century. Here, too, there are several layers where the historical and the mythological overlap. The stylized imagery reminds us that the external world is, after all, a sophisticated set of artificial sceneries and that our narratives are uncertain constructions, where fact and fiction create a complex web.
The exhibition as a whole is about a thoughtful, not seldom critical look, directed at ideas and concepts imprinted in the classical heritage which connect generations even when we don’t realize it. Through art, the stories move forward and backward, transcend time and travel freely between the indeterminate boundaries of reality and imagination. Johan Furåker’s works are like portals to a bygone era viewed with the somewhat surprised eyes of today. Ditte Ejlerskov starts in the past but rather navigates forward towards an unknown and visionary landscape, where old norms will very likely be replaced by new, still unclear patterns. Together, the works are links between ancient myths and an uncertain future.
Joanna Persman
DITTE EJLERSKOV, born 1982 in Frederikshavn, lives and works in Skælskør, Denmark. Ditte Ejlerskov has studied at The Funen Art Academy in Odense, Cooper Union School of Art in New York and holds a MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden. Ditte Ejlerskov has received numerous art grants and residencies, and her work has been shown at several galleries and art institutions worldwide, among them CCA in Andratx, Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen, Moderna Museet Malmö, Uppsala konstmuseum, CNEAI in Chatou and MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo. She recently had a solo exhibition at Varberg Konsthall in Sweden. Ditte Ejlerskov’s work is represented at The Danish Arts Foundation, Public Art Agency Sweden, Malmö Konstmuseum, MASP in São Paulo, and ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, among others. Public art commissions include The Arthritis Hospital in Sønderborg, Det Musiske Hus in Frederikshavn and The Basic Health Care College, Denmark. In 2017 Ditte Ejlerskov was commissioned by The Danish Parliament to do an official portrait of Helle Thorning-Schmidt, then prime minister of Denmark.
JOHAN FURÅKER, born 1978 in Uppsala, Sweden, lives and works in Denmark. Johan Furåker has studied at Gerlesborgsskolan in Stockholm, Umeå Art Academy and holds a MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden. Johan Furåker has exhibited solo and participated in group shows at several galleries and art institutions throughout Europe, among them CAPC in Bordeaux, CNEAI in Chatou, France, Kunstverein Hannover in Germany, Kristiansand Kunsthall in Norway, Reykjavik Art Museum in Iceland and Malmö Art Museum in Sweden. As well as CAVE / AYUMI GALLERY in Tokyo, Japan. Johan Furåker has received a number of art grants and residencies, and his work is in the permanent collection of at CAPC in Bordeaux, CCA in Andratx, Uppsala Art Museum, Malmö Art Museum and Public Art Agency Sweden, among others. In 2020 he was commissioned to do an artwork for the Forensic Psychiatric Regional Clinic in Vadstena, Sweden, resulting in murals, glass designs and paintings.
Installation images Giulia Cairone