Resident Pressure: The Putting on of Airs

An exhibition by Joel Hurlburt

 

The gallery will be sealed at 20:00, on Friday, March 22nd

The gallery will be unsealed and a re-opening event held,18:00-21:00, on Saturday, April 6th

The gallery will also be open between 12:00-17:00, on Sunday, April 7th

 

c4 Projects presents the site-specific installation, Resident Pressure: The Putting on of Airs, by international artist Joel Hurlburt (US/SE) occupying the gallery between March 22nd and April 7th. With this traveling installation, Hurlburt undermines the artistic cliché of “capturing a place” by literally bottling thousands of liters of a country’s atmosphere and releasing it later in the next site of exhibition. Questions of value, place, and identity are brought to light (“putting on airs” is a common English language phrase for believing one is better than others, in terms of wealth, status, intelligence, etc.). Instead of fantasies of en plein air, the romantic tradition of painting outdoors, the process is reworked into a mechanical procedure of “catch and release” through the gallery space, utilizing compressors and air tanks.

A tank of air (breathing air) is prepared in Stockholm and transported to the gallery. Over the course of the exhibition, the contents of the tank are slowly released into the sealed gallery space. At the completion of the exhibition period the air from the tank has overcome the gallery space. Then at the time of the re-opening event of the exhibition, on the evening of April 6th, the gallery will be unsealed and this volume of air will be carried away by visitors, and escape through the gallery’s door into the city of Copenhagen.

After the conclusion of the exhibition the tank will be filled again in Copenhagen, and the process will be repeated in a new city.

Born in Maine (US), Joel Hurlburt now lives and works in Sweden, since 2003. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, in 3D Fine Arts, from Massachusetts College of Art, in Boston, and received a Master of Fine Arts, from Konstfack, in Stockholm. Since 2014, his practice-based research has focused on materials and methods for sculptural processes, the link between the physical analogue and the digital manifestation, and developing the study of what he calls diffuse objects. His meandering working references include, but are not limited to, phenomenology, perception, physiology, industrial engineering, literature, linguistics and philosophical games.