Traces | Art Portfolio | Bon Int No.18

For the Fall/Winter 2010 Bon International issue, the Art Portfolio I curated four artists' work which deals with TRACES: the one as human beings we leave behind, the impact our existence has on our surroundings, how the past effects our lives and how we map our existence through objects and space. 

Louise Bourgeois

Back in May 2010, one of the most celebrated International female artists died at the age of 98. A prolific creator of captivating installations and sculptures, Louise Bourgeois explored her childhood and paternal relationship through her lifetimes work. The first woman to be given a retrospective at Museum of Modern Art, New York, Bourgeois’s artistic talents first flourished by helping her mother in the family business of Medieval tapestry restoration at 12. An avid collector of fabrics from old clothing to bed linen, textiles have featured heavily in her work from sculptural forms of figures to towers of cushions. In 1992, She Lost It was performed at the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, a 178-foot cheesecloth banner wrapped around Robert Storr was unraveled revealing text for the audience to read before being rewrapped around an embracing couple. Hauser & Wirth provided us with exclusive images of her beautiful fabric drawings to be unveiled at their new Saville Row gallery. 

Cyprien Galliard

New kid on the block (excuse the pun) and Marcel Duchamp Prize nominee, Cyprien Galliard has been getting a lot of attention for his work that encompasses the changing effects modern society has on its cities. Inevitably we affect the history of our habitual surroundings as architecture endures constant social and physical destruction. Paying homage to the many demolished buildings, whose rubble has paved the way for new: walkways, structural foundations and carparks; Galliard’s records the ever-changing topography of our lives. His films, photography and performances celebrate the entropy of our 21st Century civilisation. Fresh from his solo show at Kunsthalle Basel, he’s about to embark on numerous projects across the world; from the 8th South Korean Biennale to his solo presentation at the Hirshhorn Museum. 

Sophie Calle

She’s been a Chambermaid who documented hotel guest’s possessions; she was followed by a private detective, hired by her mother upon her request; Paul Auster immortalized her in a novel and most recently she asked a variety of women to interpret a break up email she received from her ex-lover. Sophie Calle personifies voyeurism; her practice for the past 30 years has explored the traces we create in our daily lives. Obsessed by relationships; the one we have with others, and ourselves, Calle puts the social customs we develop over time under the microscope. Blurring the line between truth and fiction; private and public, she presents her photographs and accompanying text in a formulaic fashion akin to criminal evidence, for us, the jurors to decipher. 

Michael Johansson

Varying hues of the same item ordered in a variety of formations or gallery windows and doorways blocked by a multicoloured mixture of everyday objects is how Swedish artist Michael Johansson’s humourous interventions and sculptures highlight the void that we ignore on a regular basis. Finding the happy accident in a seemingly worthless item, Johansson is fascinated by the unintentional coordination of daily life, where irregularities become repetitive coincidences-different people wearing identical clothing walking past each other in the street – pushing the intended purpose of an object to the max. He’s filled suitcases, with other suitcases, has rammed a caravan full with camping equipment and piled scales on top of other scales, ultimately creating a new context for these objects to co-exist with one another. For his forthcoming shows at Växjö Konsthall and Bergen Kunstmuseum he’ll riffle through the storerooms for objects to incorporate in two new site-specific interventions.