Lazar Lyutakov and Jens Fröberg at Simian

Artists: Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg

Exhibition title: Rough Continuity

Venue: Simian, Copenhagen, Denmark

Date: August 28 – October 16, 2021

Photography: GRAYSC / All images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Simian, Copenhagen

Apology of the arancina

The arancina is a speciality of Sicilian cuisine. It is a deep-fried rice sphere, the size of a baseball, stuffed with tomato sauce, mozzarella, peas or other ingredients. The arancina was introduced around the 10th century by the Arabs, who ate portions of saffron-seasoned rice with herbs and meat. The crunchy breading, which ensures better preservation and easier portability, was later added as a way to bring the dish along on hunting trips and farmwork sessions. To this day, the arancina is famous as a street food delicacy best consumed on the go.

The arancina’s form, colour and dimensions are reminiscent of a small orange, arancia in the Italian language: a fruit that abounds on the Mediterranean island. In western Sicily, however, its name is male (arancino) and its shape is cone -like. Oral tradition claims that this specific design is an homage to the ebullient majesty of Mount Etna towering over the city of Catania: the steam released when biting off the tip of the freshly cooked arancino would resemble the smoke of the volcano, while the red-hot filling and the crispy coating would evoke the lava in its two stages, hot and cold.

The precision of the triangulation word- image-thing provided by the arancina, in both its female and male versions, is something I find absolutely intriguing. The delicious dish has perfected its form-function relation down through the centuries and today it presents itself in the guise of an orange or a volcano according to local custom. In all its simplicity, the arancina leads me to reflect on the complex relationship between reality and representation, and the even more manifold correlation between representation and language.

What happens when an image is built upon a fairly recognizable sign system — let’s say, a composition of line and colour — but its denomination tells us that we are looking at a picture of a specific something rather than an abstract painting? The same question can be asked in reverse, and both trigger an adaptive response that is much more ordinary than we might think, in art as well as in life. Even a tray full of arancini, if observed up close, from afar or for long enough, turns into an abstract form. The artist just makes this evident.

Artists can also establish the premises for a different encounter with an object in terms of design. If they make use of a product (or by-product) whose form we perceive as familiar and pleasing to the eye, it is to bare its structure and reveal its components. If they employ a particular commodity category, it is to expose the intrinsic implications it carries around and the set of values it is carried around by. This goes beyond the context-related revelation of the readymade: that which is called “a little orange” is, in fact, not a fruit at all…

In the “transparency society,” as South Korean philosopher Byung-chul Han has labelled it, the invisible is not what is not- visible in itself, but rather what is visible from a stance other than the standard way of seeing. While the point of arrival of such an approach might land on a variety of formal shores, the point of departure is rooted in the same phenomenon: a prolonged, insistent and very personal act of observation that has a lot in common with an act of silent resistance – or, perhaps more simply, of stubborn persistence. Sticky and plain like cooked rice.

Text by Paola Paleari

Lazar Lyutakov, born 1977 in Shabla, Bulgaria, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2005. He has participated in several international biennials, among them the Venice Biennale (2019), where he and Rada Boukova represented Bulgaria; the 1st Vienna Biennale (2015) and a special project at the 6th Moscow Biennale (2015). He has had solo exhibitions at One Night Stand Gallery in Sofia (2017), Georg Kargl Permanent (2015) and MAK in Vienna (2011). Lyutakov lives and works in Vienna.

Jens Fröberg, born 1983 in Malmö, Sweden, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2017. He has had solo exhibitions at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm (2021), Galleri Rostrum in Malmö (2019) and Xhibit in Vienna (2017). Fröberg lives and works in Malmö and Vienna.

Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg, Rough Continuity, 2021, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

Jens Fröberg, Shaped canvas, oil on canvas, 22×16 cm, 2019-2020

Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg, Rough Continuity, 2021, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

Lazar Lyutakov, Untitled (Lamp Series, #42, 2017), ongoing since 2006, plastic vessels, electric materials

Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg, Rough Continuity, 2021, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

Lazar Lyutakov, Untitled (Lamp Series, #51, #52, #53, 2019) ongoing since 2006, plastic vessels, electric materials

Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg, Rough Continuity, 2021, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

Jens Fröberg, Still life, oil on canvas, 30×40 cm, 2018-2019

Jens Fröberg, Setting a good corner, oil on canvas, 32×42 cm, 2020-2021

Jens Fröberg, Setting a good corner, oil on canvas, 28×28 cm, 2016-2021

Jens Fröberg, White painting, oil on canvas, 32 x 36 cm, 2019-2021

Jens Fröberg, Repetition, oil on canvas, 28 x 35 cm, 2021

Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg, Rough Continuity, 2021, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

Jens Fröberg, Light on Abstract painting, oil on canvas, 21 x 28 cm, 2020-2021

Jens Fröberg, Shaped canvas, oil on canvas, 36×27 cm, 2020-2021

Jens Fröberg, 2 panel painting, oil on canvas, 38×30 cm, 2019-2021

Jens Fröberg, Still life, oil on canvas, 30×35 cm, 2019-2020

Lazar Lyutakov, Jens Fröberg, Rough Continuity, 2021, exhibition view, Simian, Copenhagen

Lazar Lyutakov, The incantation of empty events, 2021, defective metal cover hoods for water heaters (produced by Austria Email AG), plastic cover hoods, cardboard boxes, styrofoam mannequin heads

Lazar Lyutakov, detail, The incantation of empty events, 2021, defective metal cover hoods for water heaters (produced by Austria Email AG), plastic cover hoods, cardboard boxes, styrofoam mannequin heads