A K Dolven: Please Return - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1908970197 ISBN 13: 9781908970190

Publisher: Art/Books, 2015

Synopsis

Since the 1990s, acclaimed Norwegian and London-based artist AK Dolven has produced a substantial body of work that explores the relationship between individuals and the perception of their environment, the connections that bind inner and outer realities. Using a diverse range of media, she combines seemingly simple, almost minimalistic elements to create complex responses to a particular locale – especially the frozen landscapes of the Arctic Circle – while maintaining a universal voice that resonates far beyond the specifics of the place. Frequently immersive in nature, her works investigate but also induce feelings of discomfort and disorientation in the eye, body and mind of the viewer, a sense of forever being at odds with one’s surroundings. Coinciding with a solo exhibition at the Ikon Gallery, this book presents the past decade of the artist’s practice. In five themed chapters, each artwork is shown in a series of large-scale installation shots and details that replicate the spatial and physical impact of the piece itself. Introductory texts to each chapter by five internationally renowned writers and thinkers illuminate various aspects of the artist’s work, addressing, among other things, its political significance, emotional intensity and philosophical depth. An introduction by volume editor Gaby Hartel considers the importance of AK Dolven’s sketchbooks to the genesis of her work, with a 24-page insert reproducing some of these sketchbooks in facsimile form. A second bound-in insert at the back of the book presents the artist’s own notes on the works, with supporting source material.

About this title

About the Author:

A K Dolven (b.1953) is one of Norway's best-known and most highly acclaimed artists. Since 1997, she has lived and worked between London and Lofoten, Norway, following a decade in Berlin and ten years in France. She has exhibited widely, including at Bergen Kunsthall, South London Gallery, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios Dublin, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Nurnberg, Kunsthalle Bern, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Moderna Museet Stockholm and Platform China. Her work is in many major international collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arts Council Collection, Hoffmann Collection, KIASMA, La Gaia Collection, Kunsthalle Bern, Fundacion Salamanca Ciudad de Cultura, National Gallery of Norway, and Tate. She was awarded the German Fred-Thieler Prize in 2000 and the Swedish Prince Eugen Medal in 2005. In 2013, she was commissioned by the University of Cambridge to create a permanent public artwork in the city. Gaby Hartel (b.1961) is a cultural journalist, radio broadcaster and literary translator based in Berlin and London. She has published extensively on contemporary art, sound and literature. Ina Blom (b.1961) is an art critic, curator and art historian based in Oslo, Norway. Since 2001 she has been Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo. She is a member of the editorial boards of Art History, Journal of the Association of Art Historians and Konsthistorisk Tidsskrift, and is a contributor to Artforum, Parkett, Afterall and Texte zur Kunst. Recent and forthcoming books include On the Style Site: Art Sociality and Media Culture and The Autobiography of Video: The Life and Times of a Memory Technology. Esther Kinsky (b.1956) is an award-winning German writer and literary translator living and working in Berlin and Battonya, Hungary. Her novel Summer Resort was recently published in English. She is longlisted for this year's Deutscher Buchpreis, for a novel bases on a series of walks along London's River Lea. Thomas Macho (b.1952) is an Austrian philosopher, curator and professor of cultural theory and history at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, which he co-founded. Has published widely on music and art, metaphors of death, silence, and representations of contemporary identity. He also held various guest professorships at the University of Klagenfurt, University of Fine Arts, Linz and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Studies, Vienna. Mark Ravenhill (b.1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist. His plays include Shopping and Fucking (1996), Some Explicit Polaroids (1999) and Mother Clap's Molly House (2001). He often writes for the arts section of The Guardian. In 2012, Mark Ravenhill became the Royal Shakespeare Company's Writer in Residence. He is Associate Director of London's Little Opera House at The King s Head Theatre. Jonathan Watkins (b.1957) is an internationally renowned curator, writer and the director of Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, United Kingdom. He has curated a number of significant international exhibitions including the Iraq Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale; Guangzhou Triennial (2012); Negotiations, Today Art Museum, Beijing (2010); Sharjah Biennial (2007); Shanghai Biennale (2006); Tate Triennial (2003); Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art, Hayward Gallery, London (2001); Quotidiana, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1999); and the Biennale of Sydney (1998).

About this edition

• Publisher: Art/Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1908970197
• ISBN 13: 9781908970190
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264
• Editor: Gaby Hartel