Depattern Erik Steen Gallery, Oslo 2009
"Depattern"
Leo Saul Berk, Tora Dalseng, Jan Freuchen, Dagfin Kjølsrud, Lindsay Seers, André Tehrani.
Curated by Jan Freuchen
04.02.2010 - 14.03.2010
The figures in Dagfinn Kjølsrud’s sculptures stand in disbelief while they witness a scene that they themselves have been the cause of. Their bodies seem to have been hewn from a block and have deep wounds and cuts. They exist in a parallel state of mind, which reminds us of the original meaning of the word paranoia (from the Greek para "beyond" and noos "mind"): to have another mind beside one’s own.
Depatterning was introduced as a form of treatment in the field of experimental psychiatry in the postwar period. The thinking was that undesirable patterns of behaviour could be eliminated by means of indoctrination, with the aim of achieving a state of "tabula rasa", so that a new and better philosophy of life could then be implanted in the patient. The fundamental conviction was that the human mind is a kind of computer, where information can be deleted or installed. Behind these ideas lay a dream of total social control. This thinking is brought to debate in the novel "The Manchurian Candidate", written by Richard Condon in 1959, in which an American soldier is kidnapped during the Korean War and programmed to murder his own leaders. Depatterning can also take on the guise of an irreplaceable loss, as when the weeping Lim Jay-Hyok is not recognised by his senile father in 2000, after the pair have endured 50 years of separation on each side of the Korean border.
A drawing by Leo Saul Berk (born 1974 in Santa Cruz, California) shows Al-Qaida's subterranean Tora Bora fort, based on the news agencies' imaginary depictions of it. André Tehrani (born 1980 in Tønsberg) systemises song titles in two monomaniac works. Tora Dalseng (born 1982 in Tromsø) blends mathematics and language in her sculptures Calculus. Lindsay Seers (born 1966) contributes with a vampiric self-portrait in which she literally used her own body as a camera. Jan Freuchen (born 1979 in Stavanger) is represented at the exhibition with drawings of commenced building projects and has in addition constructed pedestals for Dagfinn Kjølsrud's (1930-1974, Kristiansand) sculptures.
The dormaphone repeatedly emits hortatory sentences to the patient throughout the night. The repetition, re-encounter and refrain can have a confirmatory, exhausting or crucial effect. Depattern examines the interaction between the diagnosis, the symptom and the treatment.
"If you're a wonderful paranoid, you believe that someone is in control, and to me that's optimistic." (David Cronenberg)
Jan Freuchen, January 2010
"Repeating the Word Radio"
by André Tehrani
2010
"Street Scene"
by Dagfin Kjølsrud
1972
"Tora Bora (drawing)"
Leo Saul Berk
2009
"Signature Work"
by Jan Freuchen
2010