CLAUS CARSTENSEN AND PETER BONDE

Claus Carstensen and Peter Bonde, two young Danish artists, have for several years worked within a modernist painting tradition. However, the past year can rather be described as a year of reflection rather than action. Both reached a point in their creative process where they wanted to reduce the established meanings of things and contexts to a minimum and start anew — a kind of “zero point” art.

They made a pause in their pictorial creation, but now — one year later — they are attempting, step by step, to rebuild something again. Each image fragment is added to another, and thus a scenic image grows, one that nevertheless avoids taking a qualitative stance toward the objects and their relationships.

They work with well-established symbols in language but make small ironic interventions that cause the familiar symbols — the sign bearers — to appear in a different way. The definitions are no longer self-evident, and Peter Bonde and Claus Carstensen also question whether interpretation itself is inherent in things and contexts.

Classical emblems such as the red flag, portraits of Gagarin, books, and slogans from demonstrations are demystified and removed from their familiar contexts, giving the material a lightly ironic tone. Peter Bonde’s slogan “Emblems reappear as goods” gives a hint that what was once believed to serve as ideals has now become something that can be consumed. That is precisely why we need to re-evaluate objects, contexts, and signs in our reality — in order not to remain trapped in thought stereotypes.

The exhibition is open weekdays 3–8 p.m., Saturdays 1–5 p.m., and runs until April 12, 1981.

NON-COMMERCIAL ART LABORATORY FOUNDED IN 1971.
USUALLY OPEN MONDAY TO FRIDAY 3–8 P.M., SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 1–5 P.M.