“you may cycle the layers without alteration”

Kunsthal 44 Møen invited the two artists to create a site-specific installation in the Smithy adjacent to the art gallery’s main building.

The installation is inspired by the transformation of a Venn diagram into a three-dimensional structure. Venn diagrams are illustrations used in the branch of mathematics known as set theory. They show all possible logical connections between a finite collection of different sets. The artists have linked the Venn diagram to Plato’s concept of knowledge, which seeks to illustrate how knowledge emerges as a fusion between “faith” and “truth”: in other words, what we believe exists and what actually exists. The structure of the diagram is made spatial using strips of copper and aluminium, which intersect the brickwork, roof, doors and windows. The common set in the encounter between the two worlds is formed in the joint surfaces of the building and the strips.

Logos and textual fragments, found in the immediate vicinity of the Smithy, are printed in 3D and embedded in copper water pipes and aluminium strips, forming an idiosyncratic cohesion of texts and imagery from Møn. The fragments were found in the likes of Hårbølle Harbour, Fanefjord Church, the local Ugebladet-for-Møn newspaper, Camping Vestmøn etc. Via the installation they form their own narrative with lyrical maxims such as: “in my blood”, “memory”, “Utopia”, “Bella donna” etc. The Smithy ends up creating the basis for a visual adaptation of what exists in the world and around us in Møn. In many ways, the two artists’ treatment of the diagram and Møn’s graphic language end up undermining the diagram’s logic, thereby highlighting the fact that very little, maybe nothing, can be said to be indisputably true or exhaustively justified.

Jean Marc Routhier (b. 1987, lives in Copenhagen), MFA, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Art (2015) and Universität der Künste Berlin. Routhier works experimentally in a variety of formats and media, in both his individual practice, and a range of artistic and curatorial collaborations. Routhier’s work has recently been exhibited at Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen (2016), Susanne Ottesen, Copenhagen (2016), Liszt, Berlin (2015).

Amitai Romm (b. 1985, lives in Copenhagen), MFA, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Art (2014) and Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna. Romm works mainly in sculpture and spatial installations through a specific interest in communication and sign-making processes in cultural, material and biological systems. Romm’s work has recently been exhibited at Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen (2016), BUS Projects, Melbourne (2016), Garret Grimoire, Vienna (2015).

In corporation with Billedkunstskolerne, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts).