Oslo
This is the last week to see “You in Between”
@nasjonalmuseet as part of the grandly staged “Art Hand Work” exhibition.
The piece was originally made for my first international solo museum exhibition at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in 2008 and was restaged a few years later
@kunstnerforbundet from which
@nasjonalmuseet acquired the work for their collection.
In an essay published in the catalogue for the Middlesbrough show
@ezrashales writes:
What Aalto feared has come to pass: consumer fetishization of commodities like instantly scratched plastic chairs, watches, and other hardware for living has displaced the chthonic laws of human sociability. Ruhwald turns the myth of a Scandinavian design ethos, a postwar phenomenon in which Aalto was a key player and in which Ruhwald himself developed, into an insular minefield, revealing it to be one part promise of democratization, one part tactical marketing, and one part insidious social engineering.
The artist’s references to the household violence wrought by mass-produced commodities upon our psychology delineate a broad contemporary predicament. His exhibition is both a boutique of mainstream Modernist ornament and a slew of props for glam rock or gothic fa-shionistas. His sculpture might best be seen as the ornamental domestic equivalent of the anti-terrorist cement and stone bollards that punctuate our cities, providing discomfort as physical perches and psychological reminders of our failure to operate as a collective. This urban décor of stanchions, barriers, and impasses, similarly obstructs camaraderie, or alerts us to its absence.
Art Hand Work closes this Sunday
—————————————————-
Above:
You in between
Glazed ceramic, carpet, ribbons, glass, painted metal, string and candles.
Dimensions variable
2008
Photo: Gilmar Ribeiro, G2 photography
Collection of Nasjonal Museet, Oslo
