In his practice Hansen takes things that exist in the world and modifies them, while making sure to leave them in states of ambiguous suspense. The resulting works are deceptively simple but enigmatic. They raise questions about originality and intentionality, and seem to point to the continuous reshaping of ideas and materials that any work of art, and perhaps anything else, is a manifestation of.
For a while now, Hansen has been heat transferring digital prints onto various materials. A technique by which a ghostly image turns up unexpectedly and embodies a quasi state of being fully dependent on the surface it occupies, as if to highlight the parasitic or mutualistic nature of this relationship.
In this show he continues this procedure applying multiple layers of digital print onto old discarded photo paper boxes, resulting in highly condensed wall works that hang throughout RUF’s two main rooms facing an arterial road leading into the city.
It's hard to tell exactly what it is we are looking at; glossy surfaces scarred by scratches and heatmarks repel and swallow the gaze as it attempts to penetrate: photo collages of swarms caught in a state of flux, pixelation reaching its melting point turning liquid, or mold infestation on damp basement walls all come to mind, while old labels push out from underneath, disclosing the past lives of the boxes. They seem to find themselves in a state of transformation or disintegration, not quite objects or images. From time to time a set of skeletonized teeth become visible, like an echo of the vanitas genre, reminding us that while we are busy looking, time is ticking and this particular concentration of energy and matter called “the self” is transforming. Just like individuals, techniques, ideas and genres rise to prominence, are replaced by new ones and sink into oblivion, only to resurface much later,
who knows, in an altogether different time that will draw different meanings from them.
In the same rooms Hansen shows a set of works that all incorporate parts of banged up wooden chairs that probably used to belong to an auditorium or a movie theater: stuff that no one is interested in any longer.
In the first room three backrests have been dumped on the floor. The curved shapes cast shadows on the gray linoleum. One lies on top of another creating a hollow where the light can’t reach. Perhaps a temporary resting place for something that hasn't arrived yet.
In the other room a seat has been hung on the wall, while another one seems to balance on the windowsill. Both have been fitted with a piece of black polyester carpet with an indistinct white pattern, perhaps a lingering memory of what has been.
These pieces seem to grapple with a not so distant past, before zoom calls and streaming services, when large seating arrangements accommodated bodies engaged in education or mass entertainment. A scenario that seems almost incomprehensible in the midst of a hyper-connected digital landscape that has forever reshaped the way we structure our time and space.
The show ends in the subterra that lies behind an old brown door inside the inner yard. A video work plays on a projection screen down in the dark. With its silent brick walls and arches in the ceiling there is something almost deific about the setting. The video is an edited version of Jim Jarmush movie, Limits of Control. Something that isn't clearly stated. The movie title is included in the title list but not attached to this particular work: in fact all of
the titles are interchangeable, drifting in and out like specters among the works.
By cropping the image to about a fourth of its original size, speeding it up and removing the sound Hansen has blasted open the tight structure of the movie and brought it back to a state of unpredictability. A hand here, a forehead there and lots of backgrounds: uniform colors and patterns as if to suggest that the potential for the formless is always present within the already formed.
Albert Løje