|
Critics´ Pick, Artforum.com by Ana Finel Honigman
Johan Thurfjell’s first solo show in Germany is titled “Dead
Calm,” invoking the ominous term that sailors use for deceptively
placid weather. In the same way, the sculptures and watercolors by this
Stockholm-based artist superficially appear peaceful, yet they carry an
undercurrent of creepiness and danger. In Goodnight Mom, Goodnight Dad,
2008, comprising four wooden models of Thurfjell’s parents’
summer house, gradual gradations from brown to black set the otherwise
identical houses apart, as if the setting sun were casting the structure
gradually into darkness. A sense of the uncanny also cuts through Thurfjell’s
twenty-one softly hued watercolors of cargo and cruise ships from the
1940s to today. Each image has the faintly nostalgic allure of a faded
picture postcard. The renderings are based on images of the ships moving
through smooth waters, but on further investigation, viewers learn that
each foundered in fire or storm or ran aground. Instead of horrific information
setting the stage, the unsettling undertone to Thurfjell’s Bright
Eyes, 2008, is comparatively overt. In this jesmonite, wax, and wood sculpture,
a spotlight is raised on a tripod and shines directly into the eyes of
a startled, lifelike, actual-size hare squatting and staring with uncomprehending
fear. Ironically, the hare is alert but only to a harmless, false danger.
In contrast, the spooky darkness descending on Thurfjell’s family
home creates an aura of horrific foreshadowing for the doomed crews aboard
the ships, who don’t know of the danger awaiting them or that tomorrow
may not bring safety |
|
|
|