3. doubled pawns

A response to Tilflugt (2022) by Signe Klejs and Christian Windfeld:

Art as a discipline is uncontrollable.

I can use imagery which speaks to me and only me. 

I can play with universal themes only to discover they were never universal.

I can make a work about how much I love chess and you might understand it as being about the pursuit of love within a totalitarian society.

Maybe that’s failure.

Maybe it’s beautiful.

Maybe failure is beautiful in its nature.

If I am having a particularly good day maybe I will view any art on that day through that lens.

The same is, of course, true in reverse. 

And that is beautiful. I become part of the art. A little part of where and how I am will affect the way in which I meet the work. 

When art plays with this notion and pushes me to perceive myself inside the work, for me it begins to shift into transforming how I see the world and myself within it.

I was really thinking about this in relation to Tilfugt as I am advised to see both parts of a work which is housed in two different cities. The spectator is already given the potential to partake in the work in so many ways. Even if I never see both halves, I am aware that this is bigger than this current place and moment. 

The work invites me to be transported away from the daylight into a dark and abstract space. It is a performance in two acts that doesn’t follow a chronology. It can be seen at different times and on different days. Maybe this is true of lots of things, it’s arguably not so different to having a Starbucks in more than one city, but something about it feels palpably special.

The first half which I see is at Regelbau 411, which isn’t necessarily situated for on-foot visitors, I got slightly lost and walked through a field of cows to arrive at the gallery.  The space isn’t staffed nor is there any kind of foyer or welcome area. When I come to the entrance of the space I can already faintly hear Christian Wildfeld’s soundtrack playing within, and as soon as I come through the door I am in the work. It is now dark. The music is loud. The world of Tilfugt is immediately and unapologetically thrust upon us.

When I experience the second half of the work I am distinctly transported back to a place that I’ve already been, but I never really understood. I have one more piece of the jigsaw than I started out with. Motifs, or ideas that are kept or developed now speak to me in a new way. They are linked to recent memories; they are a new flavour of an already digested taste. 

As I alluded to earlier, it takes risk in its invitation for people to experience it freely across a week. That feels kind of exciting. It has the potential to play with time in new ways - I have a gap of a few days between seeing each half, and I realise it kind of doesn’t feel like the work ever stopped. It’s still there. It’s also somewhere else.

In both spaces darkness is used to create mystery, it creates a succinct experience and draws attention to featured pieces within the work. It is not an artwork which requires presentation in an open space against a white wall. The converted bunkers are full of rusting metal and remnants of unused structural elements. The independent concert venue is plain but alive, the bar is partially stocked but masked in the darkness. 

Maybe this doesn’t seem like something which should feel important. But it allows the spaces to breathe as one somehow, it sets a precedent for what this is and isn’t. Connectivity is not achieved through copying but through sharing. 

I have so much to say and I haven’t really even told you what the work itself looked like - and maybe I should leave it like that. I would be honoured if someone had felt my art so strongly that they weren’t concerned with it’s aesthetics. 

Tilflugt is an exhibition taking place at Regelbau 411 (Oddesund, Denmark) and Radar (Aarhus, Denmark) - the former being an art centre and the latter being an independent concert venue. The premise of the work is the meeting of both institutions, where site specific installation becomes concert - by separating the two parts of the work over 100km in distance, it also becomes a literal test of how far an audience is willing to go to see the work. You can read more about it here. 

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Doubled Pawns - The Queens Gambit, Season 1, Episode 3