NERVOUS ELEPHANTS

With Nervous Elephants at Windows;68, Henrik Vibskov introduces new works on paper, sculptures, wood puzzles and an inflatable window installation. His multidisciplinary artistic cosmos merges design, music, and art in the style of the Bauhaus. The title evokes Dadaist poetry, setting the tone for the entire exhibition. Like the Surrealists, Vibskov partly uses automatic creation for his works on paper, combining industrial elements, human shapes, and natural forms.

In his drawings, retrofuturistic visions are fueled by music: there are recognizable references to the jazz movement through Sun Ra and Space is the Place.

Craftsmanship and pure materiality are rendered visible in his sculptural Wooden Spinners. Both Ettore Sottsass’s ceramics and Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s formalist simplicity are sources of inspiration for his sculptural work. The wall puzzles seem to provide endless possible combinations, yet only one piece fits next to the other. Vibskov consistently works with inflatable objects: his 2012 show at Ruttkowski;68 featured the work Big Blow-Up Thing, where the artist reassembled an amorphic membrane.

“I like looking into social patterns, cultural groups in society, or in the small environments around me, things that happen by coincidence or by mistake, weird or funny situations.” By unravelling how bodies and objects are used in society, and abstracting their stories into an artistic language, Vibskov seismographically senses dispositions and changes in our surroundings and materializes time-conscious social constructs in a visionary manner.