April 10th – May 17th, 2008




Torben Ribe: Reconsidering Everything (again)
Maiken Bent: Principles of Pain and Pleasure

The exhibition “Reconsidering Everything (again)” is Torben Ribe’s (born 1978) second solo show at Bendixen Contemporary Art.
Torben Ribe has produced a series of books for the exhibition. The books are quite large, so large, in fact, that they cannot be held. This explains why they stand or lie around the gallery floor, where they enter into a physical dialogue with the gallery guests. Like a kind of painted sculptures. The books may be looked at but not read, for it is not possible to open them. They are made of wooden mdf boards and subsequently painted and reworked in order to obtain a realistic book-like appearance. Scruffy and marked by wear and tear: the patina of old books.
Torben Ribe has chosen to focus only on the book’s cover and the book as an object. But what about the contents? The text? “Fill in with your own imagination’” the Danish-German fluxus artist Addi(Arthur) Köpcke sometimes wrote on his works. In the case of Torben Ribe, it is up to the viewer to fill in the books with one’s own imagination, helped along by the hints he has given through the strange titles on the covers, the purposely chosen typography, the thickness of the book, its color, the materials used, the graphic impression.
For example, “Nougat – utopian and scientific”, is one of the titles on a large, worn-out, turquoise green book held together by tape where it is falling apart. Underneath the strange title is an image of a nebula. Aha! That must mean that outer space is utopian nougat made accessible through science. What? No! That doesn’t make any sense. What absurd scientific discipline could be behind a publication of that kind? Other titles are “BANKRUPT – seven new critical paintings (part II)” and “Pedophilia in Contemporary Art – Dream, Fantasy and Marketing”.
The more or less fictitious titles hint at themes such as art, capitalism and cultural consumerism. The overall impression that we get of Torben Ribe’s work is of a distorted, humorous and slightly absurd reflection of the usual cultural consumerism; the devouring, pedophile hunger of this consumption for youth and tales of success. And its hysterical urge to deliver consumerism itself in an apocalyptic show about the end of art or total BANKRUPTCY. However, simultaneously with this critique, Torben Ribe presents us with a redeeming sense of humor and fantasy. Precisely this fact points towards the possibility for art to enter into a creative relationship with the consumerism that also part of the art world.
But who is the cultural consumer? It is the man or woman who visits a gallery, looks at art, reads a press release such as this one and is widely orientated in contemporary culture. The cultural consumer is also the undersigned as well as the artist himself. The exhibition “Reconsidering Everything (again)” gives us the opportunity to relate to the art scene and the cultural consumerism that we all share in as fantasizing, reflective and humorous way.

Ferdinand Ahm Krag

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The title of Maiken Bent’s (b. 1980) solo exhibition at bendixen contemporary art is ’Principles of Pain and Pleasure’. It consists of various sculptures placed on the floor, on the wall or hanging down from the ceiling in the gallery space. Together, the works of art form an installation that could resemble accurately arranged merchandise on display in a store. But Maiken Bent’s works of art are neither articles for everyday use nor merely decorative objects – though the objects are distinctly aesthetic and in one way or the other functional.
Maiken Bent’s artworks are physical in a bodily way. One of the best examples of this physical peculiarity is a work that represents a pillory. Historically, the pillory was used to display criminals in a public place, where they became objects of taunt and ridicule. The gallery is also a public space. Nevertheless, Maiken Bent’s sculpture of a pillory seems to be made for a much more private use in a secret room; a place for punishment and pain that the individual brings upon oneself. Around the pillory’s holes for the arms and head billows a scenic romantic mist, painted as if it was wavelike northern lights. A ghostly green garland of beauty lights up the head of the person sitting in the pillory. The ambiguity between the aesthetic pleasure and the bodily pain is visually very directly revealed in Maiken Bent’s work, but from a psychological point of view it’s subtle and associative. This is clearly shown though her choice of materials: mirrors, horse-bridles, dyed leather pieces sewn together with strong stitches, stained and lacquered wood, golden chains and a discrete use of colored light are significant materials in this evocative universe of ‘Pain and Pleasure’.
Bent’s artworks are decorative and cool, but they are also filled with sexual undertones and references to the body in a violent, bestial or punishing manner. On the wall, for instance, hangs a harness arranged like a mask. Who is meant to be controlled here? What perverse, comic or beautiful game are these objects accessories in? Is it a human with brutish forces that needs to be controlled? Maybe Bent’s artworks are primarily an expression of self-exorcism. Therein lies the ‘function’ of the artworks. It’s about bridling and expelling the sometimes uncontrollable physical forces that makes up a personality. But these forces are also sources of beauty. Therefore, they have to be released with reasonable severity. What Maiken Bent’s art is really about is giving in to oneself and letting the fascination of how one’s inner forces and temperament makes humans run wild - like mad horses, like a galloping nightmare. So hold your reins tight, spectator!

Ferdinand Ahm Krag

Both projects are sponsored by the Danish Arts Council's Committee for Visual Arts

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Bendixen Contemporary Art
Carl Jacobsens Vej 20, 4th Floor
2500 Valby
Tlf. +45 36 16 03 25
bendixen@contemporary-art.dk
www.bendixen-art.dk

Opening hours: Tuesday - Friday 12-17, Saturday 11-14