OKULAR

2019

Collaborations by Tania & Thomas Asbæk,

Press release:

As humans in modern society we are to partake in a succession of social and institutional constellations that makes it necessary for us to lead several ongoing subjectivities which we can step in and out of. With this in mind Sandegård has created new art works that explore the complexities of the human experience; a discussion that will never lessen in importance. With the belief that our self-understanding is a continuing process throughout the entirety of our life, where we constantly seek an insight in the manner of our being through varied reflections, Sandegård presents a materialization of this unending process.

The Sphenoid-bone, which is placed in the middle of the skull behind the eyes, has been a returning physical representation of the artists interest in our self- understanding. This is due to its form which create associations to the mask. In front of the bone is an ocular lens. This lens normally occurs in binoculars and microscopes where it operates as the enlarger of the object being observed. On the contrary to the objective lens the ocular is turned towards the eye and therefore it also has the effect of looking inwards.

The art works centers on the oscillation between the absence and the presence of the artist himself. The exhibition takes shape as different explorations of the artist’s understanding of his own being and together they serve as individual aesthetic components of a sole self-portrait. By means of the art works Sandegård observes himself through his own absence: Here, his clinically reproduced sweat appear as moon craters. But was he present, then the material is personified and has the practical purpose of cooling his body when overheated. The surface area of Sandegård’s body equals the surface area of the art work Naked Shell, Squeezed. In his absence is a literal shell. The mother-of-pearl on the surface of the shell becomes his skin, and were we to touch this skin, he will seem present as it carries the same temperature as his body. Orbital Contour Mask convey the appearance of scientific instruments of a bygone era. The various conclusions based upon measurements made with these instruments have since been disproved, but here they are visualized as the measurements that define the surface of an absent body. The measurements are unique to his physical surface, but they are exactly that; only surface.