Bauer2012
BAUER – An exhibition by Lundahl and Seitl
Since the museum began, beings who are sensitive to the abilities that rest in the human soul lived in the gallery’s corners. These creatures live in a sort of coma and come to mind when someone enters their room. The vibrations of the visitor’s steps bring to life creatures and a light begins to glow within them. When the visitor reaches the centre of the room the creatures are lit strongest. Their life is short. When the visitor moves back again, the room’s edges, pale creature’s contours and tucked back inside the picture, frame the cavity. It is often said that art reflects society. But when art holds up a mirror to reflect the culture and the society we live in, it also sends back an image of ourselves, that affects our vision.
We were asked to give John Bauer’s art a new room and a new perspective. With openness to meeting with a picture’s content, our role as curators was to orchestrate the intangible. Light, shadows and sounds, and the visitor’s movement in time creates a triangular reflection of the viewer, exhibition space and art, where the ritual of the museum visit is emphasised.
The idea that the artwork itself has a truth that exists outside of the viewer and the art museum as an authority, has historically been a basic principle followed in contemporary art. We have formed this exhibition to give confidence to the viewer in his experience of the artworks. We let John Bauer’s pictures exist independent without the thematic dimension to the exhibition. On the basis of the modern museum’s white cube aesthetic the exhibition space has natural elements that follow today’s rhythm. The light moves like a sun over the white upstanding walls that cast shadows into the gallery’s shade.
We grew up in the Jönköping district, in areas that have inspired the artist John Bauer, and as children have met and been influenced by his work. Today we are based in Stockholm and London.
Christer Lundahl and Martina Seitl