On Hearing of An Absence
Haus N Athen
November 25, 2022–January 13, 2023
Haus N Athen
November 25, 2022–January 13, 2023
The exhibition On Hearing of an Absence is concerned with what cannot be seen, verified, or named. The emphasis falls on what the exhibited works irradiate rather than represent: mood, atmosphere, the presence of something that resists figuration.
The works do not offer a static spectacle. They are charged with affective intensity. Oscillating between real and imaginary space, some point toward things that no longer exist, toward absences that resist resolution. They redirect attention toward what is missing, toward a void where a tangible reference once was. The imagery is grounded in the uncanny: the familiar made strange, the everyday rendered uninhabitable. These works occupy what Gordon Burn calls the "anti-sublime": a territory far from the pleasure principle.
Everything in this terrain is concealed under a surface of familiarity. Marked by austerity and dereliction, the works appear familiar while simultaneously unsettling; they resist identification and push the viewer beyond the normal. Moving through the exhibition, one encounters a palpable but unverifiable presence, a world felt rather than seen, sensed 'in the air' rather than confirmed. Presence is introduced in terms of absence. Absence takes the form of presence. The opposites become indistinct.
Curated by: Dinos Chatzirafailidis
Participating artists: Kirstine Aarkrog, Andreas Albrectsen, Anna Gonzalez Noguchi, Francesco Pacelli, Deniz Saridas, Jura Shust, Sasha Streshna, Markus von Platen
Installation photography: Nikos Katsaros
Visual identity: Eleni Kaskoura
Supported by: Danish Arts Foundation
Haus N Athen | 6, Kairi Street, Athens, Greece 106 51
The works do not offer a static spectacle. They are charged with affective intensity. Oscillating between real and imaginary space, some point toward things that no longer exist, toward absences that resist resolution. They redirect attention toward what is missing, toward a void where a tangible reference once was. The imagery is grounded in the uncanny: the familiar made strange, the everyday rendered uninhabitable. These works occupy what Gordon Burn calls the "anti-sublime": a territory far from the pleasure principle.
Everything in this terrain is concealed under a surface of familiarity. Marked by austerity and dereliction, the works appear familiar while simultaneously unsettling; they resist identification and push the viewer beyond the normal. Moving through the exhibition, one encounters a palpable but unverifiable presence, a world felt rather than seen, sensed 'in the air' rather than confirmed. Presence is introduced in terms of absence. Absence takes the form of presence. The opposites become indistinct.
Curated by: Dinos Chatzirafailidis
Participating artists: Kirstine Aarkrog, Andreas Albrectsen, Anna Gonzalez Noguchi, Francesco Pacelli, Deniz Saridas, Jura Shust, Sasha Streshna, Markus von Platen
Installation photography: Nikos Katsaros
Visual identity: Eleni Kaskoura
Supported by: Danish Arts Foundation
Haus N Athen | 6, Kairi Street, Athens, Greece 106 51