Rasmus Myrup, Vertreibzeit

Vertreibzeit
At Kunstverein Göttingen, Niedersachsen, DE

28.01 - 26.02.2023

Rasmus Myrup situates nature as both the earliest and most enduring human experience of space in his first institutional solo exhibition in Germany ‘Vertreibzeit’. Redolent of free-standing dioramas, new sculptures of foraged natural materials coalesce with works on paper. His installations—formed with earth, stones, moss, twigs, leaves and branches from the mixed deciduous forests of Denmark and Göttingen’s woodlands—probe knowledge forms and the essence of being human.

In alluding to Western history museums’ preservation, categorisation and display practices separating viewer and object, Myrup serves to forefront the metamorphosis and transience of cultural practices and ephemera. Just as the exhibition’s title ‘Vertreibzeit’ plays metaphorically with perspective, the artist’s sculptures orchestrate actual physical perspective changes to promote alternate, amalgamated understandings of human and natural history. Fused with works on paper depicting gentle, speculative, intertwined pasts and futures, the artists defies our conditioned impulse to define and categorise. Myrup advocates a coexistence between nature and the human body that transfers and shares agency to and with natural substances. The exhibition at Kunstverein Göttingen encourages a reconstitution of life away from imposed dualisms, unfolding experiential dynamics of care, gender, sexuality, community and power that span flora, fauna and humans alike, and do not consider planetary and cultural history linear or separable.

Curated by Sarah Crowe and Alke Heykes.

Vertreibzeit, 2023
Installation view, Kunstverein Göttingen, Niedersachsen, DE

Shaped grass (silver), 2023
grass, grosgrain

Flipped landscape (aw23/24), 2023
wood, aluminium, moss, leaves, grass, lichen, millinery netting, pearls, hardware

Vertreibzeit, 2023
Installation view, Kunstverein Göttingen, Niedersachsen, DE

A triptych of electric red frames pierce the earthy, verdure palette of Rasmus Myrup’s exhibition 'Vertreibzeit'. Of another, indefinable time, their dream-like content imagines the beginnings of art as a classifiable, canonical field. The soft pastel and charcoal drawings envision the genesis of art handling, collecting and conserving: a hand carefully cups an gem-like object; a figure has gathered and is arranging rocks around a tree trunk; another closely inspects and grooms a feather. Myrup suggests these practices, often seen as secondary to art, in fact predate art making. With repetition, the works’ titles playfully undercut the idea artists are, and always have been at the vanguard of everything.

Myrup suggests recognising art—what is special and unique—is an intuitive practice that precedes artists. It is much like the artist’s love for foraging prevalent in the exhibition: the feeling of finding something worth keeping but not quite knowing why.

Art handlers are older than artists themselves, 2023
Soft pastel and charcoal on synthetic paper
Paper size 50 x 70 cm

Art collectors are older than artists themselves, 2023
Soft pastel and charcoal on synthetic paper
Paper size 50 x 70 cm

Art conservators are older than artists themselves, 2023
Soft pastel and charcoal on synthetic paper
Paper size 50 x 70 cm

Straight/not straight birch, 2023
Birch, yarn, hardware

Intersecting landscape (aw23/24), 2023
Wood, aluminium, moss, leaves, pine needles, hardware

'Intersecting landscape (aw23/24)' is one of four sculptural topographies in the exhibition 'Vertreibzeit'. Picture planes resembling cutouts of forest floors, they are dotted with moss, leaves and pine needles foraged by Myrup. He produced these landscapes specifically for the rooms of Kunstverein Göttingen to forge a site-specific relationship for visitors between the human-constructed space and the natural world. He highlights this tension as tree branches, twigs, and grass extend in all directions beyond the frames, expanding wildly into the space.

The wall sculpture is comprised of two adjacent panels positioned in such a way that the trees grow horizontally out of the picture planes so their branches touch. Myrup prompts a physical change in perspective for visitors and metaphorically challenges the hegemony between human and nature. Simultaneously he anthropomorphises nature, lets it become active partners in a relationship, and even seals it through an inorganic connection.

Intersecting landscape (aw23/24), 2023
Wood, aluminium, moss, leaves, pine needles, hardware

Split landscape (aw 23/24 and ss24), 2023
Wood, aluminium, upholstery foam, plastic flakes, glitter, etched glass, leaves, grass, teasels, hardware

Pastimes of times past (stalactite), 2023
Digital drawing printed on Dibond

Pastimes of times past (water lily), 2023
Digital drawing printed on Dibond

Pastimes of times past (fire), 2023
Digital drawing printed on Dibond

Folded landscape (aw23/24), 2023
Wood, aluminium, moss, pine needles, pine cones, yarn, pearls, acorn hats, chain, hardware

Preservation bias be damned (snowman w/ skull of ur dead bf), 2023
Soft pastel and charcoal on cotton paper
Paper size 65 x 50 cm

Preservation bias be damned (the inventor, mobile), 2023
Soft pastel and charcoal on cotton paper
Paper size 65 x 110 cm

Preservation bias be damned (silhouette stoner), 2023
Soft pastel and charcoal on cotton paper
Paper size 65 x 50 cm

Pine chandelier, 2023
Pine, crystals, chain, aluminium thread

The origin of interior design, 2023
Oil, soft pastel and charcoal on synthetic paper

The origin of 3D printing, 2023
Oil, soft pastel and charcoal on synthetic paper

The origin of real estate agency, 2023
Oil, soft pastel and charcoal on synthetic paper

Shaped grass (grey), 2023
Grass, grosgrain

& birch, 2023
Birch, yarn, hardware

The wall sculpture '& birch' protrudes into the room like a 3D freehand form. Artist Rasmus Myrup was drawn to the branch while foraging because of its extremely unusual shape. It lends the impression of an ampersand, a symbol of joining, connection and multiplicity. As we follow the twisting growth of the branch, the journey becomes more and more exciting: the paths of the branch run and draw flamboyant arcs, splitting in several places to create a complex, graphic, spatial object. The finer details of its form—twigs and dried offshoots—are even more intricate, aided by Myrup’s yarn intervention. Their entire surface is wound with mohair. Myrup has condensed the branches in some places and created connections that do not exist in nature. He imbues '& birch' with a mystical form, created by human and nature alike. In symbiosis with nature, Myrup here cultivates a magical relationship that could bridge the void between the phenomenal and noumenal realms.

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