Lars Laumann

October 10 - November 21 2010

The source of many works by Lars Laumann (*1975 in Bronnoysund, lives and works in Berlin) are conspiratorial stories found on television, in cinema or on the internet. A variety of people, networks, situations and places serve as a kind of raw material that is re-constructed and re-contextualised into surprising new stories. The use of quotations and the sampling of various real and fictitious 'facts' result in artworks that offer more than just contemplation to the spectator; they also incite individual research. Laumann loves to generate an ambivalent empathy in the spectator; the stories in the videos clearly ask for individual judgment, but at the same time the feelings evoked towards the characters often oscillate between sympathy and repulsion. The artist's own point of view remains equivocal. Besides this very content-based approach, Laumann is also extremely interested in reflecting upon the media of film. This crucial interest is mirrored in the display of the exhibition, where different forms of media representation are employed: there is a VHS player with a television, a combination of a projection and a monitor, a mobile projection screen, an oversized plasmascreen and a cinematic setting. In conjunction to Laumann's show a vinyl edition has been produced together with the Nowegian art publisher Torpedo Press; it contains music from Laumann's video works, written by Swedish composer Dan Ola Persson.

Oliver Kielmayer