Artists: Magnus Frederik Clausen and Kaare Ruud
Exhibition title: Funding Emotions
Venue: Cantina, Aarhus, Denmark
Date: August 25 – September 23, 2023
Photography: ©Mikkel Kaldal / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Cantina, Aarhus
Note: Exhibition’s floor plan is available here. Essay by Kristian Vistrup Madsen is available here
Magnus Frederik Clausen challenges and plays with the production of painting through a diffusion of the artistic work. In collaboration with family, colleagues and assistants, who paint his pictures based on simple instructions, he himself takes on a role that could be compared to a conductor from the world of music rather than a painter. In this movement away from the classical execution of the painting with the artist’s own hand in focus to a more conceptual approach to painting, Clausen challenges the art history’s idea of the artist’s unique imprint and instead creates a social painting that includes more people in its process.
In Kaare Ruud’s practice, found materials such as garden furniture, sheets, withered plants, tennis socks and toothbrushes are included in installations and sculptural objects. The materials, which bear the impression of having been left and then found, without being dusted, stand as melancholic fgures in the exhibition rooms. Objects with bent table legs stand animated like humans or animals, with their heads bowing in a sad pose, or lying resignedly on the foor, create connections between the objects left behind and the stories and emotional states they carry with them.
Kaare Ruud (b. 1993, Gausdal) lives and works in Oslo and graduated with an MFA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2020. Ruud’s artistic practice mainly focuses on sculptural interventions and sculptural work in a range of different and untraditional materials.
Magnus Frederik Clausen (b. 1981). 2018–21 MA from The European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, under professors Carlos Amorales and Siegfried Zielinski. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include Castle (with Yu Nishimura), LA (forthcoming 2024), Billytown (with Jason Hirata), The Hague (2023), solo presentation with Claas Reiss at Art Brussels, Brussels (2023), Braunsfelder, Cologne (2022), Claas Reiss, London (2022), Freddy Gallery (with Mads Lindberg), Harris (2022), C.C.C., Copenhagen (2022), Rinomina (with Claus Haxholm), Paris (2021), Spazio Orr (with David Ostrowski) ,
Brescia (2021), AGA Works/Tørreloft (with Sónia Almeida), Copenhagen (2020), Matèria Gallery (with Giulia Marchi), Rome (2018), Years, Copenhagen (2015), Palazzo Lucarini, Trevi (2014). Group exhibitions and flm screenings include Opdahl, Stavanger (forthcoming 2024), MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai (forthcoming 2023).
Ruud has had solo shows at Samlingen, Nesodden (2023), Heerz Tooya, Veliko Tarnovo (2022), SOL, Nexø (as Simpathy with Mikkel Carlsen, 2022) Hulias, Oslo (2022), Norsk Billedhoggerforening, Oslo (2020/2021) Galleri Toll, Stockholm (2021) and Løvens Hule, Oslo (2019) Ruud has also been included in group shows at Hulias Cantina, Civita d’antino (2023) STANDARD, Oslo (2021) QB gallery, Oslo (2021/2022) Hulias, Oslo (2020), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2020) and Vestlandsutstillingen (2020).
Forthcoming he will present the exhibition “This page is blank on purpose” at Stormen kunst/dájdda, Bodø (2023) and participate as a resident of Cite des Arts Paris (FR) in 2023/24 and Hulias Cantina (IT) 2024.
