Jonas Ohlsson - My Desire To Exhibit Is Stronger Than My Shows
Galerie Fons Welters - Playstation
23 Sep – 21 Oct 2000
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PLAYSTATION is proud to present the newest installation and most recent drawings by the Amsterdam based Swedish artist Jonas Ohlsson (1967).
Under the title My Desire To Exhibit Is Stronger Than My Shows, Ohlsson has built up a tower-like construction - equipped with lights and speakers - which spills out its own sound track. Its man-like stature, topped with a downward spiral and encircled by a homemade moat, recalls Ohlsson's earlier Tower of Fear (1999). But now, as well, it can be seen as his adaptation of the "Majstång", a yearly Swedish celebration commemorating the lightest day of the year when it is believed that the sky descends to penetrate the earth with his phallus shaped 'May-Pole'.
During the opening and occasionally during the course of the exhibit, Ohlsson himself will be making music for his Babylonian tower in an attempt to unlock its meaning and overcome strict divisions in history and form.
Ohlsson's work is often noted for its dynamic actuality: in a pop-like stream of images, material and rhythms, he creates situations and comments on stories about making art, on himself as an artist, on all people as (potential) makers and on the world as playground. It's about the flow, as Captain Beefheart once said, not necessarily the result, The flow is the task above today; there is no other way. This time however, Ohlsson has opted for full concentration of both the process and the product: not merely the scene of an event and its remains, but an event, a celebration, which, in its 'before' and aftermath, stands autonomous of its maker.
Jonas Ohlsson has participated in various shows in Holland and abroad: recently in "L.A. Personals", a group show and exchange initiated by the Sandberg in S2 Hoorn and in Los Angeles; the group exhibition "Wachtlokale" at Arti et Amicitiae; "artitainment" a solo at Kunstruimte Kampen; "Dialog i rummet" at the Art Musem of Örebro with Gabriel Orozco and Pär Stromberg.
[Maxine Kopsa]