The Egg or The Hen, Us or Them, 2011

Description:

What we see are 52 stone like objects in the exhibition room. The piece is 28 minutes and runs in a loop. It is divided in 3 parts, a conversational part with a singing part, an abstract part and a neutral light setting part. The audience is free to walk in and out as they wish. Different groups of “stone characters” lead conversations between them. The dudes in the back run a rather goofy conversation, Joris and Rosalinda exchange the words of lovers that never manage to reunite, the Big lonely stone in the middle talks to themselves, the Skint and Cigar battle in an abusive dialogue amongst them, a group of family stones talk over a meal and behind them is a left out rock that fell on it’s side about 10.000 years ago and craves being re-erected. At some point, all the stones start singing. In the abstract part, colours, lines and shapes are projected over the stone like shapes, the faces are gone, and they take on a more archaic presence. The third and the shortest part is when neutral white light is shed over the shapes to reveal them in as a neutral way as possible

More about the works:

In this work, which one of many of “conversational pieces” that Egill Sæbjörnsson has produced throughout his whole career, we see something that looks like stones that talk and sing. At the same time as the piece came out, Egill Sæbjörnsson published a book called: STONES according to Egill Sæbjörnsson. Published by Revolver Verlag in Germany, the book was an attempt to form ideologies about agency of matter and that things have their own language and are living in their own right. The book includes several conversations with other people, led by Egill Sæbjörnsson and texts by scholars and the curator Stefanie Böttcher, that was an important element in encouraging Egill Sæbjörnsson making the work with the stones, and to release this book. One of the conversations led, was with the Professor of Social Science at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr. Jane Bennet, that at the time had just released her book, Vibrant Matter, that also tries to explain the agency of matter.

In later works, Egill Sæbjörnsson further developed his ideas that were given birth in the book STONES according to Egill Sæbjörnsson. In the lecture performance From Magma to Mankind (2020) and Object Species (2021), he explains his ideas about that we need to correct the common understanding that live was sparked on Planet Earth, and that it has not been found on other Planets, and that we come from the first single cells. He tries to point out that everything in the Universe comes from the same source, and that we need to erase the line between living and dead things (and probably find a new term for it) and that so called dead things, like art, is actually a living being in it’s own right, what he calls an “Object Species”, that affects humans just as much as we think we “create art”.

Here are links to the book on Amazon and to the lecture performances:

Artwork Information:

Title: The Egg or The Hen, Us or Them

Year: 2011

Materials: A tripple channel video projection, objects made of papier maché, wood glue, saw dust, paint and chicken-wire.

Sound: Dolby Stereo 5.1

Dimensions: Variable

Duration: 28 minutes

Exhibition history:

Künstlerhaus Bremen. Cur: Stefanie Böttcher. Bremen. Germany. 2011

Naturkundemuseum Basel. Swizerland. 2015

Kunsthalle Mainz. On the Shoulders of Giants. Cur: Stefanie Böttcher. Bremen. Germany. 2016

Cobra Museum. Restless Matter. Cur: Xander Karskens. Amsterdam. Holland. 2018

STUK. Com Artefact. Leuven. Belgium. 2018

The Egg or The Hen, Us or Them. Prague. 2018

The National Gallery of Iceland. Egill Sæbjörnsson & Infinite Friends of The Universe. Cur: Arnbjörg María Danielsen. Reykjavik. Iceland. 2023-2024

Categories:

Video Installation

Conversation Pieces

Animation

Music & Sound