Christian Falsnaes "Surface Memory" Event

14.01.2010 / 19-24h
Opening

Christian Falsnaes
“Surface Memory”

with Live performance: Jonathan Aardestrup (DK) & Tanja Schlander (DK)

Christian Falsnaes, who was born 1980 in Copenhagen, studied philosophy and was active in the graffiti-, and squatting- scene before he began his studies at the Academy of fine Arts in Vienna, subtly works to break down the barriers between high culture and popular culture, between visual art, film, music and literature.
His works are mostly complex assemblages of different media, where existing structures and roles are sampled and modified to create absurd scenarios, often in public space and documented on video or photography.
In his Surface Memory pieces, Falsnaes creates abstract paintings by pulling canvases soaked in paint over different surfaces in the streets. The action is reminiscent of both the gesture of action painting as well as the public interventions of urban activism. Hereby a strategy of appropriation is applied to both the common space of the streets and to common cultural references.
In Ve.sch, the canvases are shown together with photo-documentation of the traces left in the streets.

Painting and public space
I am inspired by the conception that the white canvas, can be seen as a recording media that is able to store the traces of an act. The title “Surface Memory” is a reference to both the surface of the public space and the surface of the canvas. The surface of the canvas carry traces of the action as well as of the urban physicality:
The wall, the paint and the movement.
Surface Memory is an attempt to engage in a discussion about art - especially unauthorized art - in public space and it’s relations to art history, painting and performance.
The project can be seen as a continuation of my investigations of the crossing point between painting and performance as well as the exhibition space and the public space.

The exhibition as a social event
14.01.2010 Live performance Christian Falsnaes Jonathan Aardestrup & Tanja Schlander
21.01.2010 Installation Krafftmalerei - curated by Verena Kaspar-Eisert (Kunstraum Niederösterreich)
04.02.2010 Live concert Fm Zombiemaus, Bobby Velvet, Nikolaus Suchentrunk, Christian Falsnaes