Past
Ruth Campau: Between the Past and the Coming
23 Jan – 14 Mar 2015
Between the Past and the Coming (Eismeer), 2015. Installation view. Acrylic board, acrylic mirror board, radiant acrylic board, wood. 10m x 8,62m x 0,80m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Operating in the field between space and painting, between two and three dimensions, has for many years been the pivotal point in Ruth Campau’s practice as an artist.
In the exhibition Between the Past and the Coming, which consists of three new installations, she presents a narrative in acrylic, mylar, polyester, silicone and velour, which as the title indicates connects the artist’s in-depth exploration of the boundaries of painting with her more recent departures investigating the total installation as a monumental form.
In the first room of the exhibition the audience meets an extensive floor work made of fragments of Campau’s characteristic painted acrylic sheets produced over the past decade. With the brushstroke as the artist’s signature, here the acrylic sheets form the point of departure for a larger installational whole framed by a raised gangway along the walls of the exhibition space from which the audience can look at the work from above. The past is physically and literally embedded in the installation, irrefutable yet rearranged and viewable from numerous different positions and angles, enabling it to be understood and approached anew.
Between the Past and the Coming (Eismeer), 2015. Installation view. Acrylic board, acrylic mirror board, radiant acrylic board, wood. 10m x 8,62m x 0,80m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming (Eismeer), 2015. Installation view. Acrylic board, acrylic mirror board, radiant acrylic board, wood. 10m x 8,62m x 0,80m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming (Eismeer), 2015. Installation view. Acrylic board, acrylic mirror board, radiant acrylic board, wood. 10m x 8,62m x 0,80m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming (Eismeer), 2015. Detail. Acrylic board, acrylic mirror board, radiant acrylic board, wood. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming (Eismeer), 2015. Detail. Acrylic board, acrylic mirror board, radiant acrylic board, wood. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Installation view. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Installation view. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming, 2015. Installation view. Mylar, mirror mylar, aluminium, acrylic mirror board. 3,50m x 9m x 6,50m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming, 2015. Installation view. Mylar, mirror mylar, aluminium, acrylic mirror board. 3,50m x 9m x 6,50m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming, 2015. Installation view. Mylar, mirror mylar, aluminium, acrylic mirror board. 3,50m x 9m x 6,50m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming, 2015. Installation view. Mylar, mirror mylar, aluminium, acrylic mirror board. 3,50m x 9m x 6,50m. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Between the Past and the Coming, 2015. Detail. Mylar, mirror mylar, aluminium, acrylic mirror board. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Ruth Campau (b.1955) lives and works in Copenhagen and is a member of the Academy Council and the artist association Grønningen. Her more recent exhibitions include Vertical at Marianne Friis Gallery, Copenhagen; Robert Jacobsen up to date at Esbjerg Art Museum; Pearl at PS Project Space, Amsterdam; Velvet Mirror and Diamonds at Asbæk AAC Showroom, Copenhagen, and My Museum at KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg. Her works are in private and public collections, including ARKEN Museum for Modern Art, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, Esbjerg Art Museum and the New Carlsberg Foundation. She has furthermore been commissioned to carry out numerous projects in public space.