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Artists

Kirsten Ortwed

Press release

Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot all over two scalps and above the black dots: the hair. Artificial humans, real hair and real heaircuts, real heads with sculptural features.

They are:
not looking at each other
not talking
not alone
not interested
not familiar faces 
not all ears
not shy
not in need of scarves

Lie like you mean it, like hundreds of kilos of bronze on the floor. This is not a tub. This was a tub. The sculpture as well as the tub are lying. First it was a hollow for liquids and humans, eventually it became a hard pile unfit for bodies. Form transformed, function down the drain. Out of the blue and fire, this black backside appears and instantly it is frontal. Deep sea forehead or mummified belly. Blowhole, navel, button.

It is: 
not a useful container
not warm, nor wet (anymore)
not oil-black, but close enough 
not a whale

Back is back, backing up is backing up, and isn’t any casting process an act of saving. Not from danger but for longer or shorter futures. Sculptures tend to pile up and turn into a body of work. A body of work is easily mistaken for an archive, so what can we do when it turns its back on us.

We can: 
save some questions
look closer 
consider whether the opposite of a bright pool is a brown hill 
consider whether the opposite of casting metal is trimming hair
consider whether the opposite of the gaze is the sculpture or the closed eyes

The opposite of backing up is throwing out. Kirsten Ortwed found two discarded heads in Italy and stored them for later use.

By Nanna Friis