FRIDMAN GALLERY

The dancer, through the Butoh spirit, confronts the origins of his fears: a dance which crawls towards the bowel of the earth. -   Tatsumi Hijikata

 

Fridman Gallery is pleased to present, INSCRIBED Oh Locus Locus, the first solo exhibition in the US of Danish artist Helene Nymann (b. 1982, Copenhagen, Denmark). 

 

Nymann's work investigates the notion of embodied knowledge and speculates how choreography and associative images stimulate memory. Nymann creates performative environments in which the moving image, sound, and sculpture make way for transformative states of consciousness, all in an ongoing investigation of the conscious and subconscious state of the human mind.

 

In the video installation Whether We Are, Nymann creates a physical self-awareness in the audience who, as a result of the work’s scale and presence may become participants. Memoria And Other Aftermaths is more concerned with provoking a self-conscious, almost mirroring engagement due to its nearly still, single-frame composition. In both of these works, the protagonist is a classically trained ballet dancer. The ballet dancer typically works under clear instructions from a choreographer. 

 

Nymann, however, circumnavigates these prerequisites by requesting the response to the dancer’s immediate environment and its materials through his unconscious, without a determined outcome. It is here that Nymann explores strategies related to Butoh, a form of dance developed in 1950s Japan, in response to the country’s post war mindset. Butoh translates from Japanese as “darkness” and is traditionally performed in a slow, unconscious state of expression where past events transform into bodily and cognitive responses.

 

INSCRIBED Oh Locus Locus poignantly investigates how emotions such as trauma are often inextricably related to wider social conditions and how these become literally embodied.

 

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Helene Nymann (Aka IMA)  received a BFA (Hons) from Goldsmiths College, University of London and an MFA in Fine Art from Malmø Art Academy, Sweden. Having shown work at The Lincoln Centre, David Rubinstein Atrium, DNA Gallery, MACRO Museo D´arte Contemporanea, Nicolai Wallner Gallery, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning and Lunds Konsthall. Nymann is currently based in New York, where she is attending the Studio Residence Program at Pioneer Works.

 

www.helenenymann.com