21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art , Kanazawa: Department of Voids
| Artist | benandsebastian |
|---|---|
| Year | 2017 |
| Material/ Technique | glass, leather, wood, paper, cloth |
| Size/ Duration | dimensions variable |
| Copyright Notice | © benandsebastian |
| Year of acquisition/ donation | 2018 |
| Description | Ben Clement: Born in Oxford, UK in 1981. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Copenhagen, Denmark. Sebastian de la Cour: Born in Copenhagen in 1980. Lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen. benandsebastian is an artist duo formed in 2006 by Ben Clement and Sebastian de la Cour. Predicated on an ongoing conversation surrounding the gaps and paradoxes in paradigms of thought, their works are realized in agglomerations of persistently elaborate details, taking the form of installations, mechanical theatres, fragments of architecture, and items of institutional furniture. They are intrigued by the way in which the absent, for example in the form of lost objects, broken artefacts or excluded narratives, has the potential to encourage doubt and open up new ways of thinking about history. "21st Century Museum of Contemporary Ar t , Kanazawa: Department of Voids" was inspired by cases of unknown origin and function, which the artists found in a Copenhagen design museum. This installation, consisting of twelve objects, revives the viewer’s awareness of the presence of things that actually exist in this world but are voids, or that are uncertain, yet certainly there. Furthermore, each object is assigned a name, such as ‘Evidence of genius’ or ‘Evidence of bias’ and has mysterious explanatory notes that appear to show the probabilities of its missing contents, inviting viewers to share these riddles and turn their imaginations to answers never revealed, or perhaps not even existing, to create their own narratives. benandsebastian’s approach here, of using substitutes to show the relationship between ‘presence’ and ‘absence’ in this work, together with their explorations of ‘authentic’ and ‘original,’ thereby exemplifies a powerful current of contemporary art thinking which insists upon the important connotations of context. |
NOTES
This Collection Data page contains the works and materials in the collection of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, as of April 1, 2018.
Artists are listed alphabetically by artist’s surname.
Works and materials by the same artists are listed according to the date of the work in principle.
Works whose dates are unidentified are listed at the end of each item. Some works are not listed according to the date of work due to their relations.
The data of works and materials are listed in order of title, production year, material/technique/form, dimensions, donor’s name, copyright holder and credit for photograph.
Dimensions are given by height (H) x width (W) in centimeters for plane work, and height (H) x width (W) x depth (D) in cm for 3-D work. Diameter (Ø) is used for circular work.
For the name of country or city, the name currently used in English is listed in principle.