Elmgreen & Dragset, Van Gogh’s Ear (2016), Courtesy of the artists and K11 Art Foundation, Galerie Perrotin, Galleria Massimo de Carlo and Victoria Miro  Gallery Photo: Jason Wyche, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY

This month, the Public Art Fund unveiled Van Gogh’s Ear, the organization’s ambitious collaboration with artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset.  Presented to the public on a fittingly drizzly wet April morning (considering the sculpture’s subject matter), the completely drained pool recalls those of 1950’s Los Angeles.   The impressive 354-inch high sculpture, designed and crafted by the duo in the form of an ear, makes explicit reference to Van Gogh, whose dismembered ear has been the subject of various speculations in art history, stands on the hectic corner of 5th avenue, showing off its intricately detailed aqua blue interior, stainless steel ladder, glowing lights and accompanying diving board.  (more…)

Artists Elmgreen and Dragset will erect an enigmatic public sculpture at Rockefeller Center, a four and a half ton swimming pool turned on its side in a reference to Vincent Van Gogh’s severed ear.  “Nobody really knows how that story came about, if it’s true, if it’s proven,” says Ingar Dragset. “Maybe Gauguin and Van Gogh invented the story together? It’s a fascinating thing.” (more…)

Elmgreen & Dragset, Past Tomorrow (Installation View)

Currently on view at Galerie Perrotin is Past Tomorrow, Elmgreen & Dragset’s second installment of their ongoing tale focused on the life and loves of imagined architect Norman Swann.  The project that, in its core, is an unrealized play by the Berlin-based Scandinavian duo, had its inception at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2013 exhibition, titled Tomorrow, turning the museum’s galleries into Mr. Swann’s residence.  The narrative resumes as their protagonist migrates to a studio apartment in New York’s Upper East Side neighborhood, after he consumes his entire family inheritance and vacates his London house in South Kensington. (more…)

Elmgreen and Dragset’s long-awaited installation, Tomorrow, which creates the fictional home of a disillusioned, homosexual architect, has opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Featuring works by the artists alongside objects from the museum and a nearby antiques market, the show will seek to alter the perception of the museum and its collection.  “There are lots of clever art shows at the moment where you go and look and it’s almost as [predictable as] mathematics,” Says Michael  Elmgreen.  “We do something where even we ask ourselves: ‘What is it about?'” (more…)

Scandinavian artists Elmgreen and Dragset have announced their partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum for an installation project that will open this fall.  Titled “Tomorrow,” the piece will imagine the residence of a fictional architect, exploring the disconnect between the character’s architectural vision and actual living arrangements.  “We really wonder what goes on inside architects’ heads,” said Elmgreen. “They have all sorts of ideas about creating places for people to live, and yet they are often completely detached from these people’s everyday lives. What does it mean for posh people to be designing social housing?” (more…)

In a bid for the attention of the international arts community, the city of Munich has partnered with artists Elmgreen & Dragset for a year-long series of public art installations across the Bavarian capital.  “We hope the art will become a reason for people to come to Munich,” says Michael Elmgreen, one half of the duo. “And that by placing different artworks throughout the city, it will encourage them to explore the whole place. It’s an optimistic, maybe naive hope to get people into the streets again.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports that Nicholas Penny, the director of London’s National Gallery, described the temporarily-installed works by Yinka Shonibare and Elmgreen & Dragset in Trafalgar Square as “antagonistic to the architectural character of the square”, making the plinth like “a stage, which can be used ironically, farcically [and] inappropriately”. (more…)

Elmgreen & Dragset with Joanna Lumley All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

This morning in London the newest commission for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square was officially unveiled. This year’s winning entry is titled Powerless Structures, Fig. 101, by Scandinavian artistic duo Elmgreen & Dragset. The bronze sculpture of a young boy atop a rocking horse stands four meters high, and joins the solemn company of Trafalgar Square’s other large-scale memorial statues—dedicated to King George IV and two famous generals respectively. A gentle pun on the tradition of the equestrian military monument, Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 playfully subverts notions of strength and power, instead celebrating their absence. Unlike most monuments, Elmgreen & Dragset’s child is not intended to commemorate history, but rather symbolizes a hope for the future, a fitting choice for one of London’s most famous public spaces as the city prepares to host the 2012 Olympics this Summer.

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