An Artist's Guide to Stop Being an Artist

Hey you All!

Now it is your last chance to experience the amusing, disturbing and provocative installation by the danish artist Sidsel Maineche Hansen!

At SMK (National Gallery of Denmark) in the 'X-room', the artist has created a thought-provoking piece called Difficult to work with?

When you try to enter the exhibition space you are first met with a heavy metal door. You have to press a bottom to be led into the room and gain access to the art piece. It seems a little alarming and claustrophobic when the door closes behind you - will you be led out again?

Then you encounter the main physical element of the installation: a wooden sculpture-doll laying on the floor in front of a wall with a video projection. It is laying there as a child in front of a television screen. But when you come closer you see that it is actually paying attention to the small screen of a mobile phone in its hand that is showing the same video. The doll has a closed isolating body language that makes the viewer start paying attention to the projection on the wall. 

The video is the doll as an animated avatar that makes its wooden face human. It is presenting a speech in a monotonic computer voice called 'An Artist's Guide to Stop Being an Artist'. It creates sincerity when it reminds me of the speaker in a news program that is presenting us with objective stories about the reality of the world. 

This doll presents to me the reality of being an artist in a world which do not value an artists. It hits close to home, because it presents the same concerns my class-mates and I have for our futures as artists. 

I still remember one statement: 'I do not think that the gallerists and curators could live up to their own demands' - here the demand that artist should create and present their pieces in the art institutions almost for free - we should just be happy that we get the opportunity to be recognized and not complain about our free labor.   

I actually just read an article about the same problem in the art world, which makes this piece very relevant to the (art)society! 

But the exhibition is closing tomorrow - so hurry up and check it out at SMK between 10-18 a clock. 

Yours, 
Gammelgaard

Read more:
https://www.smk.dk/exhibition/sidselmeinechehansen/
https://www.smk.dk/en/article/x-rummet/
https://www.smk.dk/en/

All photographs in this post are taken by: Anders Sune Berg