CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Image credit: Ayako Nishibori︎

Cave of Forgotten dreams, designed and produced by artists Juri Suzuki and Annee Grøtte Viken, takes the form of an Ikea store. Drawn to the dichotomy between the companies advertised goal to 'create a better everyday life for the majority of people' and the realities of global standardization a
nd the ideologically determined construction of normality, the artists have created an alternate world in which they explore these utopian aspirations and dubious actualities.  Using materials like flat-pack furniture, shopping bags, and advertisements, as a point of departure, Suzuki and Grøtte Viken’s works act as components of a new fantastical reality — a world that is at times playful but also ignites questions that multiply the longer one inhabits it.

Suzuki’s works are part of her ongoing investigation into what it means to exist and participate in our culture today. She uses her deep understanding of not only the utilitarian or pragmatic function of objects but also of their inherent  — although frequently hidden — cultural meanings and metaphysical power, in the creation of her sculptural works. A shopping bag made from Dutch tea towels acts a direct contrast to the ubiquitous FRAKTA, IKEA’s blue shopping bag that lacks easily identifiable forms of specific local articulation an perpetuates a global ‘leveling’.

Similarly, a series of sculptures in which one of the legs of the four-legged stool, FROSTA, is replaced with a leg cast from synthetic material, Suzuki is directly referencing the three-legged Aalto Stool on which Ikea’s design is based. Aalto’s patented L-leg design, which the designer considered his greatest achievement, is what gives the original its value. Suzuki’s sculptures directly question this mimicry of high-end design and value of the ‘next best thing’ on offer at Ikea.

Grøtte Viken’s works for this exhibition focus on the production of simulated realities. When visiting an Ikea store or browsing a catalog, one is confronted with a series of micro-worlds, not the spaces of the home, but rather stage sets, suggestions of a way of living — but one that is valorization of the superficial over the real. IKEA doesn’t sell furniture but instead offers the agency to create multiple, desired identities on a purely surface. Through a series of painted panels of portals into imaginary worlds, Grøtte Viken questions the production of fictional realities through imagery.

By giving the works titles and labels that mimic those of Ikea products, Grøtte Viken deliberately underscoring these associations while at the same time uses language and craft to simultaneously emphasize their differences. An expert in the techniques of traditional decorative painting, Grøtte Viken utilizes this labor-intensive process of producing simulated materials to evoke a sense of the imaginary that at has an inherent sense authenticity and lasting value in direct contrast to Ikeas products and her idiosyncratic and whimsical use of language in the ‘product descriptions’ asserts an intentional incongruity. The imaginary here does not necessarily imply transformation but rather gives name to a contemplation of possibilities.

FRIDAY TALK:
Kaita Shinagawa (JP) is an architectural model maker and designer. He is ambitious to create architectural objects that stimulate and enchant people by high precision works and his own unique sense of creativity while enjoy being part of translating and visualizing the idea and concept of projects in various fields.
http://www.studiokuplus.com/

Elejan van der Velde (NL) is a visual artist from the Netherlands with a material-based practice using models, sculpture, installation, video, photography and drawings. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Arnhem (NL) and graduated in 2014 (cum laude) from The Studio for Immediate Spaces at the Sandberg Institute. After his graduation he has had residences in Prague, Moscow, Rotterdam, Alkmaar and Rijeka and received the talent development grant from the creative funds NL and the grant for emerging artists from the Mondriaan Fonds. In 2017 he made his first public work in Alkmaar (NL). 
http://www.elejan.nl/


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