Art Basel 2015 | Statements | Booth N10
Kasper Akhøj
At Art Basel 2015 | Statements Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS proudly presents a new project by Kasper Akhøj. This installation presents a concrete poem on the late Brutalist architect Joao Vilanova Artigas and consists of a series of sculptures produced mainly in concrete, wood and metal. Seen as the founder of the so-called ‘School of Sao Paulo’ Artigas’ architecture is based on primary geometric forms and the use of reinforced concrete as structure and finishing at the same time.
Akhøj takes one of Artigas ideas as starting point: the materiality and exposure to béton brut could re-educate the bourgeoisie in Sao Paulo in lines of socialist thought and ideology. Artigas believed that he could insert a certain power, or magic, into the object of architecture and the people who inhabit it. Akhøj is interested in poetry and concrete as cornerstones of the Brazilian modernist utopia. The idea of inserting power into objects links back to another part of Brazilian cultural history, that of the Amerindian, and the use of talisman, totems and fetishes.
Akhøj’s research results in the presentation of seven sculptures: abstract forms in concrete; forms that are deduced from the brutalist language of Artigas, native Brazilian beliefs, and subdued signs of protest
Kasper Akhøj works with photographs, slide-projections, film and sculptural installations. He creates work that involves research, appropriation and reconfiguration, borrowing tools from sociologists, historians, and ethnographers. Situated in the realm of conceptual storytelling, they explore objects, situations, and residual histories of art, design, architecture and the institutions that present them, at times restaging past events in order to examine the conditions of the present.
In his research Akhøj derives from the material, following the way it travels: how it relates to political, economic and geographical issues. In that sense, he tries to stay as true to both subject and object as possible. Like a historian, his sources are very broad. He draws from architectural theory, but also from very local gossip that he finds in talking to people related to the buildings or architectural forms he researches. Akhøj does not compose a story out of its sources, he lets the material speak for itself, either being it the raw concrete of the architectural design, or the information he gathered in researching this construction.