Gardar Eide Einarsson, "But, What Ends When The Symbols Shatters," 2009.
Bonniers Konsthall Torsgatan 19 SE-113 9 Stockholm Suède
Bonniers Konsthall is proud to present the first major presentation of the renowned artist Gardar Eide Einarsson's work in Sweden.
Gardar Eide Einarsson's work is characterised by borrowing elements from art historical as well as contemporary sources such as graffiti and skateboard culture. Fragments and forms from the Internet, sticky labels, fanzines, graffiti and art-historical icons become signs and messages on canvas or directly on the wall, rendered in paint or ordinary felt-tip pen.
- GEE's art is consistently black-and-white. The graphics blatantly play with the clichés of street culture and the 'underground', but the blackness also contains references to all those black monochromes of art history, says the exhibition's curator and Bonniers Konsthall's director Sara Arrhenius.
Central topics in Power Has a Fragrance are authority and alienation. Drug lords and terrorists clash with police badges and truncheons in his formally and visually reduced black and white painting, his meticulously constructed sculptures, photographs, videos, flags and flyers.
- Paranoia as a social condition is a pervasive idea in GEE's works. Likewise the fascination with the outsider, either grandiose or everyday, who exists on the outside and in conflict with the system's norms through bombs, or simply through an acrimonious sticker on a car bumper, says Sara Arrhenius.
Gardar Eide Einarsson was born in 1976 in Oslo, and lives and works in New York and in Tokyo. The exhibition is a collaborative project of Bonniers Konsthall, The Reykjavik Art Museum, The Astrup Fearnley Museum for Modern Art in Oslo and Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel. At Bonniers Konsthall the artist will present new work. Curator Curated by Gunnar B. Kvaran, director of Astrup Fearnley, Hafþór Yngvason director of Reykjavik Art Museum and Sara Arrhenius director of Bonnier Konsthall. Co-curator: Camilla Larsson. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Astrup Fearnely.
