Twilight Zone | ARTPIL

•

Twilight Zone

Sep 7, 2019 – Jan 12, 2020

Kunsten in Aalborg

Louise Bourgeois

Unnatural nature and the non-human human

“It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.”

– The Twilight Zone, TV series from 1959

Dennis Oppenheim – Attempt to Raise Hell © Dennis Oppenheim

Edward & Nancy Reddin Kienholz – The Middle Islands © Estate of Edward Kienholz

As the light nights of the summer ebb away and are slowly taken over by autumn’s twilight hours, we will be opening our doors to the dusk with the exhibition Twilight Zone.

In Twilight Zoneyou will be able to experience works that are so compelling that they border on the unpleasant: Cindy Sherman’s photographic stagings of a female corpse, Louise Bourgeois’ gigantic spiders, Dennis Oppenheim’s iconic work Attempt to Raise Hell and Nancy and Edward Kienholz’s installation, The Middle Islands, in which the human animal is trapped in what could appear to be a scene of torture.

Cindy Sherman – Untitled #149 © Cindy Sherman

Seduced by the darkness

We normally define twilight as the period after sundown and before sunrise when there is still a certain amount of light in the sky. In other words, it is the hours between day and night.

In art history, this particular mixture of light and dark has formed the basis for artworks in which fantasy and reality can collide in incredible scenes. Instead of showing idyllic scenarios where people and nature are in perfect harmony, this worldview shows individuals who feel fractured, alienated and perhaps seduced by the irrational darkness.

In the exhibition with the title Twilight Zone, a broad selection of works sheds light on two overall themes: nature that isn’t natural and the non-human human being.

The works on show demonstrate how contemporary art since the 1960s has worked with this mysterious intermezzo between day and night to provide subtle, surprising and frightening glimpses of where we come from and where we are headed – as individuals and society as a whole.

Bill Viola – The Raft © Bill Viola

Thomas Demand – Lichtung © Thomas Demand

Between day and night

Join us on a journey into the recesses of the mind, where the light of cognition cannot always find its way and where the membrane between dream and nightmare, between truth and deception, are destabilized.

This is an exhibition in which mystery, wonder and alienation prevail, but where the stars of the international constellation shine. Experience works created in an abundance of media: photography, video, sculpture, painting and installation – executed by a range of contemporary art’s most renowned names such as Louise Bourgeois, Francesca Woodman, Dennis Oppenheim, Cindy Sherman, Gerhard Richter, Nancy and Edward Kienholz, Sigmar Polke, Tacita Dean, Thomas Demand, Shilpa Gupta, Bill Viola, Jesper Just, and others.

The works in the exhibition have been carefully selected from Louisiana’s superb selection of modern and contemporary art and staged as an evocative journey into darkness via light by architect Anne Schnettler. The title of the exhibition is inspired by the legendary TV series, “The Twilight Zone” created by Rod Sterling. The exhibition will fittingly be staged in the museum’s lower level.

Francesca Woodman – Self-deceit #3, Rome, Italy © Charles Woodmann Estate of Francesca

Gerhard Richter – Sechs Fotos 2.5.89 – 7.5.89 © Gerhard Richter VISDA

Louisiana + Kunsten

This exhibition is the second part of a three-year collaboration between Kunsten and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, which enables Louisiana’s world-renowned collection to extend its reach in Denmark. Over a period of three years, a series of exhibitions selected from Louisiana’s collection will be shown in the unique framework of Kunsten, designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.