On Thursday, October 3, at 18.00, Laurianne Bixhain & Krista Mölder open their duo exhibition The sum of the words that accumulate within us at Hobusepea gallery. The exhibition will remain open until October 27, 2024.
Bixhain and Mölder's work embody the conviction that the fabrication of images and the transformation of language not only enable but promote a disruption and redistribution of conventionally-assigned roles and the circulation of power, specifically all ordering in which mastery plays a part.
One of Bixhain’s key contributions here is her photo is of a dance performance inspired by the texts of Monique Wittig. In it, the image of a female face assumes the appearance of a mask, suggesting elements of the virtual or the theatrical as instances of the transformative potentials both artists’ work treats generally. The photo also suggests the multiplicity of which the ‘unitary’ self is constituted.
Using the lens of automotive glassware manufacture and diamond cutting, a key element of Bixhain’s other work here, The day begins with a loud boom, is the reciprocal nature of the phenomenon of transformation: this work explores the way in which the human is affected by the tools it deploys and by the materials which are their target. The act of transformation is itself transformative, Bixhain believes, profoundly disrupting the binary opposition between actor and acted upon, object and subject.
Bixhain and Mölder extend such concerns to notions of construction and deconstruction. Notably, their deployment of the provisional and the transitional (in subject matter, technical mise-en-œuvre, and montage) brings into play the productive participation of the viewer, in whom elements of movement, time and experience must be activated. In doing so, both artists explore the body’s potential as agent, recipient and reservoir of transformation in the broadest possible sense.
Nowhere does such multiple potential resonate more than at the intersection of the natural and technical worlds where much of Mölder’s work is situated. Her spaces are exemplars of transformative occupation by and of the body: her gliders are designed not so much to operate as cooperate within the media of gravity, movement, weightlessness. The relationships with technology and exploited material which they represent is one which forgoes imposition and submission for acceptance, vulnerability and intimacy.
Krista Mölder (b 1972) is an Estonian artist living and working in Tallinn. She works mainly with analogue photography and with issues of visual representations.
Her work often revolves around dualities and complex interplays of various forces, aiming to capture the intricate imbalance of seemingly equilibrial situations and settings. Intrigued by the lure that these situations possess visually, Mölder aims to depict their potential and the inadvertent motion or flux that carries them.
Her recent exhibitions include: “ …and Other Shades of Light” (with Kristi Kongi) at Tallinn Art Hall (2022), “Bluebird. To the Other Me”. Tartu Art House, EE (2021), “You Were a Bird”, Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2020)
Her works are included in various collections in Europe, e.g., Art Museum of Estonia, Deutsche Bank Collection, European Central Bank Art Collection.
In 2022 she was an artist in residence at the WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels.
Laurianne Bixhain was born in 1987 in Wiltz. She received a BA and an MFA from the School of Fine Arts, Bordeaux and completed a Meisterschülerstudium in photography at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig. Recent exhibitions include Deep Deep Down at Mudam, Luxembourg (2023) and What remains is an intermediary thing, repeated at Reuter Bausch Art Gallery, Luxembourg (2023). She was a resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2024); Kordon, Hiiumaa (2024); Centre national de l’audiovisuel, Luxembourg (2022); ISELP, Brussels (2021); Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2021); Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation, Paris (2018); Darling Foundry, Montreal (2017) and Islington Mill, Manchester (2016). She was included in the 2018 edition of the Rencontres de la photographie, Arles as well as the 2016 edition of the European Month of Photography, Berlin. In 2018, she was awarded the LEAP — Luxembourg Encouragement for Artists Prize.
Text by Cormac James
Translation by Ingrid Ruudi
Graphic Design by Kersti Heile
Installation by Hans-Otto Ojaste
Lightning solutions by Revo Koplus
Thanks to Teet Jagomägi, Anna Mari Liivrand, Jaanus Muruõis, Tõnu Narro, Maret Sarapu, Villem Säre, Anna Škodenko, Vaibla Linnujaam / Vaibla Bird Observatory, ArtProof OÜ, ArtSmart OÜ, ColorSlider OÜ, KORDONair, Temnikova & Kasela Gallery.
Supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Kultur | lx-Arts Council Luxembourg.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.
Additional information:
Hobusepea Gallery
Tel: +372 56 451 591
+372 52 85 324
+372 6 276 777
E-mail: galerii@eaa.ee
Hobusepea 2, Tallinn 10133
Wed‒Mon 12.00‒18.00
