Elmgreen & Dragset
Other Lovers
Artist
Elmgreen & Dragset
(1995, Kopenhagen ), Danish, Norwegian
Original Title
Other Lovers
Date2018
MediumAluminium, stainless steel lacquer, patinated copper
Dimensions167 × 142 × 74 cm
Classificationssculpture
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
Image Copyright
Elmar Vestner
DescriptionElmgreen and Dragset have been working as an artistic duo since 1995 at the intersection of art and architecture, performace and installation. The artists’s early works were performances, but most of their following creations were sculptural and constantly extended into surrounding space all the way to creating environments. The artists are interested in the environment of objects, and the discourse which arises by recontextualising them. They play with different modes of displaying art and by that their work criticises the role of established art institutions. In their works they relate to questions of globalisation, commodification, social culture and the restrictions which work in tandem with them.
This sculpture refers to Magritte’s painting The Lovers (2018). The work, created as a sculpture in a contemporary context, comments on personal intimate contact, although in contrast to Magritte’s couple this one is homosexual. With Elmgreen & Dragset, the question of sexual subcultures and homosexuality are often the focus, and they use them to disrupt normative social conventions. They often choose famous couples from the sphere of literature or art to thematise this issue and show that differently oriented individuals can project their own ideas into these narratives. The means of expression used are never overtly expansive, but through their subtle and delicate nature, as well as through their measured use of colour, the allude to marble sculptures which thematise stories from classical mythology, where we most often find heterosexual couples.
Michael Elmgreen (*1961, Copenhagen) and Ingar Dragset (*1969, Trondheim) started with performance art in Copenhagen in 1995. In 1997, they set up a workshop in Berlin. Since 1999 their work has been internationally represented. In 2005 they achieved their artistic breakthrough with a Prada boutique built in the Texas desert. As early as 2003, Elmgreen and Dragset had won the Federal Government’s competition for a monument to homosexuals persecuted under National Socialism, which has been in the Tiergarten since May 2008. In 2009 the artist duo redesigned the Danish and Norwegian pavilions at the 53rd Venice Biennale as the homes of wealthy art collectors with their acclaimed exhibition. The duo has taken part in major art events and exhibited their art at international institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2007 and 2005), the Serpentine Gallery in London (2006), Tate Modern in London (2004), Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2003), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2002 and 2001) and Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998) or the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2013). In 2017 they curated the 15th Istanbul Biennale. They have been awarded numerous honorary prizes (Preis der Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Arken Art Prize; Kritikerlaget/Norwegian Critics’ Association Kunstkritikerprisen; B.Z. Culture Prize, Berlín).
This sculpture refers to Magritte’s painting The Lovers (2018). The work, created as a sculpture in a contemporary context, comments on personal intimate contact, although in contrast to Magritte’s couple this one is homosexual. With Elmgreen & Dragset, the question of sexual subcultures and homosexuality are often the focus, and they use them to disrupt normative social conventions. They often choose famous couples from the sphere of literature or art to thematise this issue and show that differently oriented individuals can project their own ideas into these narratives. The means of expression used are never overtly expansive, but through their subtle and delicate nature, as well as through their measured use of colour, the allude to marble sculptures which thematise stories from classical mythology, where we most often find heterosexual couples.
Michael Elmgreen (*1961, Copenhagen) and Ingar Dragset (*1969, Trondheim) started with performance art in Copenhagen in 1995. In 1997, they set up a workshop in Berlin. Since 1999 their work has been internationally represented. In 2005 they achieved their artistic breakthrough with a Prada boutique built in the Texas desert. As early as 2003, Elmgreen and Dragset had won the Federal Government’s competition for a monument to homosexuals persecuted under National Socialism, which has been in the Tiergarten since May 2008. In 2009 the artist duo redesigned the Danish and Norwegian pavilions at the 53rd Venice Biennale as the homes of wealthy art collectors with their acclaimed exhibition. The duo has taken part in major art events and exhibited their art at international institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2007 and 2005), the Serpentine Gallery in London (2006), Tate Modern in London (2004), Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2003), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2002 and 2001) and Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998) or the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2013). In 2017 they curated the 15th Istanbul Biennale. They have been awarded numerous honorary prizes (Preis der Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Arken Art Prize; Kritikerlaget/Norwegian Critics’ Association Kunstkritikerprisen; B.Z. Culture Prize, Berlín).
