Nicolai Howalt, Esben Klemann, Pipaluk Lake — Migrations — Maria Lund Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: November 16, 2019 → January 11, 2020

Migration is a word that is omnipresent in our contemporary lives: Human migration, populations, species. But the phenomenon isn’t new. Only the means have changed and the attitudes, maybe… Movement happens out of necessity, under pressure, because of a simple desire or is the result of physiological or genetic parameters. Relating to fields as diverse as botany, nuclear physics, chemistry, pedology: the phenomenon of migration is foundational to the way our world functions.

The exhibition Migrations brings together three artists, the photographer Nicolai Howalt, the visual artist Esben Klemann and the sculptor Pipaluk Lake who exploit, each in their own way, the migration of matters.

The series Silver Migration by Nicolai Howalt is a pioneer work: he creates images without takes by developing a vintage photo paper with a photosensitive emulsion, which silver ions have migrated because of oxidation. The result is spectacular. In Esben Klemann’s sculptures, it’s the heat and the invisible alchemy operating in the kiln that transform ultrathin stoneware grids. A similar process can be seen in Pipaluk Lake’s work — her sculptures can be described as movements of matters (glass and metals) contradicted and stopped.

Migrations thus shows how a world invisible to the eye, regulated by its own rules, causes movements, whether spontaneous or born from the impact of voluntary interventions. Through the scope of the artworks, the very concrete field of the materials reveals the fundamental processes that are inherent to our existences.

Nicolai Howalt, Silver Migration 3, 2018 Kodak, Kodabrome II RC, photographic paper, 1962 — 35,6 × 27,9 cm Courtesy Nicolai Howalt & Galerie Maria Lund