STIGVELDI
02. JÚL 2020 - 03. ÁGÚ 2020
Sigurður Atli Sigurðsson
„Sandkorn á botni sundlauga þyrpast saman undan straumi vatna, undan aðkomu straumvalda. Sandkorn í hvítunni augasteinn verður perla horfir inn um glugga með slökkt ljós. Horfir út um glugga í átt að myrkvuðum skógi, eða eru þetta þúfur og kjarr? Kassalaga reglulega byggjum við upp grunna, grunnum þá og setjum fram formfestu, skapalón sem fyllt er út með mönnum. Hver á fætur öðrum mynda þeir mismunandi einingar líkt og hliðar á teningi. Teningi sem kastað er aftur og aftur en ólíkt hendingum leitast hann við að mynda strúktúr þáverandi núverandi samþykktra gilda. „Fyrsta sannfæringin er kassalaga hola sem erfitt er að komast uppúr nema byggja stiga," sagði tvistafjarkasexan, „stiga úr rjóma í fötu og reyndu nú mús," sagði hún og hló.
Staðfestingarskekkjan greiðir leið, kindastígurinn liggur beint við, liggur upp að hurð. Hurð sem talar timburlituð með hreyfingu vinda, gegnumtrekkir klukkuna frá einum punkti til annars, frá einni einingu til annarrar. En vísinum er miðstýrt af sandkorni augans. Við setjumst, augun beina fram, rétt eins og vísirinn bendir.
Vandlega skorðuð bil mynda öryggi og reglu. Boltuð borð og stólar, rúsínur og gull? gildi? goggun? Mannsslit í líkama sögu eða samhengis eru för eftir stólfætur. Hér er ekki pláss fyrir pallbíl sem leggur skakkt í brekku. Hér eru ekki fléttur sem breiða úr sér eða þyrping spörfugla. Hér er setustofa og biðstofa og kennslustofa og fyrirlestrarsalur og fundarsalur og bíósalur og leikhús og ræðuhöld. Og armar og loftræsting og innstungur og áklæði og stólbök fyrir menn að vera menn og önnur stólbök fyrir menn að vera öðruvísi menn með annarri klukku og skekkju og næturtifi inn útum glugga að skógi af þúfum eða sandi?“
Sigurður Atli Sigurðsson (f.1988) stundaði nám við Listaháskóla Íslands og framhaldsnám við École Supérieure d'Art et de Design Marseille-Méditerranée á árunum 2008-2013. Undanfarið hefur hann meðal annars haldið einkasýningar í PRÁM Studio í Prag og Skaftfelli á Seyðisfirði og tekið þátt í sýningum á Listasafni Íslands, Gallerí i8, Palais de Tokyo í París og International Print Center New York. Sigurður Atli rekur Prent & vini ásamt Leifi Ými Eyjólfssyni og hefur kennt við Listaháskóla Íslands frá 2016.
Sýningin er styrkt af Myndlistarsjóði og Launasjóði myndlistarmanna.
Hönnun: Helga Dögg Ólafsdóttir
Aðstoðarmaður á vinnustofu: Joe Keys
Textar: Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir og Erin Gigl
STIGVELDI
02. JUL 2020 - 03. AUG 2020
Sigurður Atli Sigurðsson
What is it to look at something that is directing you to look at it? Something is not merely shiny and attractive, but it is directing your gaze. It asks you to look by pointing where to look, then you look. “Look again.” You look further. “Look further.” You get closer, to peer inside, looking for what it seems to be asking you to look for. “What am I looking for?” “Look closer.” You keep looking, looking becomes an act of peeling back layers, not adding. As you keep searching, you keep thinking there’s more, but really there’s less. Less and less and more and more is removed. You slowly reach the center of the tootsie pop, or perhaps voraciously depending on your temperament for finding out, for knowing… as you just want to know…and upon the center you begin to wonder if a trick was played on you by the wizard who wanted to distract you while he concocts another game for you to play, to pass-onto and ask another round of ‘where am I going?’, to ensure that you’re continuously busy wondering what it is you’re looking for.. Or you begin to wonder, you begin to have the enlightened feeling that perhaps no, this isn’t a trick at all, it’s a gift! A gift that is not often, well, so rarely in fact, regarded as a gift because there’s nothing to be had. So when there’s nothing left but merely the question that engages what is in fact the answer that in the end most nothingness or bliss results in, the search gives to us, so much to feel nothing to hold. Clear away the picture plan. Clear away the content. Clear away the results. Until you’re finally walking, pondering, without purpose, along the perspective, towards the perspective that is the perspective. And everything is. There, you’ve reached it once again, the eternal ring around the rosie that these questions are playing on you. The eternal ground hog’s day, infinity loop chasing your tail. One looks to the camera as one looks to the screen as one looks to the other, Tell me what I am to know, one asks. Tell me what I am to see, one begs. And as I write this I begin to realize that this is what’s happening as I look into the magic mirror, these passe-partouts that don’t bring me everywhere or anywhere, but specifically here, there it is, I realize that here is actually anywhere indeed because I am drifting away to my own dream that has the possibility of going everywhere and I because I am me and you are you, I have the choice to go anywhere and I choose here, my here, which is different than your here. You’re there. Like Sigurður’s Sleeper work, who was sleeping, he was sleeping forever, he was too busy dreaming to answer your pleas, he was too sound a sleep to tell you his dreams, You are here, circling back to the gift that is art to make us dream. Just as a womb is not merely meant to conceive for the sake of providing, these passe-partouts are to be handled with care. Only a fool would search to take and forget to the other half of the deed .. And aha! As I overheard, so I continue to say, so much to feel nothing to hold. The real gift is not the answer, it’s your dream and the structure is your lullaby. Passe-partout: 1) a method of framing in which a picture, a mat, a glass, and a back (as of cardboard) are held together by strips of paper or cloth pasted over the edges 2) A master key or skeleton key. From French, meaning to go or pass everywhere. Étant donnés (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas, French: Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau / 2° le gaz d'éclairage) is Marcel Duchamp’s last major artwork comprising of a perspective deconstructed from its picture plane. Le Dormeur (The Sleeper): A work Sigurður created of a sleeping figurine who never wakes up. This work eventually lead to a series of screen prints entitled, “Types of People.” Pre-existing Structures: Systems, frameworks, constructions and arrangements wherein which content, material or matter is meant to passe-through, be placed, or held. Like a riverbed that holds a river, a book where a story is read from or book-ends that hold books between them. Sigurður appropriates structures often for his work, creating conduits that leave the spectator to imagine their own meaning to move within. “Alberti’s window” or "fenestra aperta”, (the “window to the outside”) is a conceptual method for understanding perspective.
