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Asger Dybvad Larsen at Rolando Anselmi

May 1, 2021

Artist: Asger Dybvad Larsen

Exhibition title: Pausing Sisyphus’ orbit to see how hills shaped his boulder

Venue: Rolando Anselmi, Rome, Italy

Date: April 12 – May 30, 2021

Photography: Sebastiano Luciano / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Rolando Anselmi, Berlin/Rome

Rolando Anselmi is pleased to announce Pausing Sisyphus’ orbit to see how hills shaped his boulder, the first solo show in the new gallery space in Rome by Asger Dybvad Larsen.

The works, specifically conceived for the exhibition, reflect the genesis of their creation process, investigating the pictorial medium in its internal dynamics, in a constant dialogue with themes and traditions of art history. Drawing in particular on post-war minimalist and conceptual strategies, Larsen points to tautology as the essential characteristic of his artistic operation. The exhibited works are characterized by the use of geometric shapes, obtained from cuttings of canvas progressively sewn to each other, an element that distinguishes Larsen’s practice. Form, composition, repetition and materiality are the immediate physical factors that state the autonomy of these works, which tautologically communicate their internal logic, emphasizing the web of relationships that bind them to each other as part of a single project. The work is indeed considered as an autonomous and self-reflective structure, in its features of disposition and configuration, not intended as a static element but analyzed in its internal functioning and in the processuality of its “coming into being”. These elements are placed before the individual gesture and the question of authorship, identifying in the relationship between planned and casual elements, between similarity and difference, the tools to create a theoretical framework capable of challenging the traditional understanding of painting. Explicative in this sense is the title of the exhibition – Pausing Sisyphus’ orbit to see how hills shaped his boulder – which becomes an image of the creative process itself. The artist, in the role of Sisyphus, engages in a continuous process of destruction and recomposition of his work, in which the artwork metaphorically takes on the connotations of the boulder, eternally pushed to the top of the hill. The mountain, associated with the process that defines and shapes the works, thus becomes an internal and creative subject. Destroyed in the “fall”, each work is cut into pieces, then stitched and assembled together, always presenting new versions of themselves.

The exhibited works avoid the logic of demonstration, preferring to show the very process of their creation and presenting themselves as an autonomous and at the same time evolving system.

Asger Dybvad Larsen (b. 1990, Fjaltring, Denmark) lives and works in Aarhus, Denmark. Recent solo shows include: Geukens & De Vil Gallery (Antwerp, 2019; Knokke, 2017), Gether Contemporary (Copenhagen, 2019; 2018), Collectors Agenda (Vienna, 2019), Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Berlin, 2018; 2015; Rome, 2017). Recent group shows include: Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Rome, 2020; 2016) Nordic Contemporary (Paris, 2018; 2016), Centre of Contemporary Art (Andratx, 2018), Geukens & De Vil Gallery (Knokke, 2018), Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon (Videbæk, 2018), Pablo’s Birthday Gallery (New York, 2018), L21 (Mallorca, 2017), Huset for Kunst og Design (Holstebro, 2017; 2015), Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus, 2017), Galerie l’inlassable (Paris, 2017), Hunted Projects (Edinburgh, 2017), Arróniz (Mexico City, 2016).