In the exhibition artist Marcus Hansson (born 1967) re-uses images from the mass media news reports and turns them into works of art. Taking on the role of an observer of the world, he proceeds to catch it, filter it, and make it his own. He also alters and connects the position of the consumer of news images with the producer of art, in a borderland between the documentary, the fictive and the artistic.
In Souvenir Hansson shows five hundred photographs coming from various news reports, mainly from the television channels BBC and Al Jazeera. In People from the news (2010), an installation consisting approximately three thousand dolls, the dolls too have faces that come from people who have appeared in the news. By photographing the passing faces directly from the television screen and then making them into dolls, Hansson materializes something which is otherwise transient. The faces as he has chosen have belonged to different people; catastrophe participants and spectators, criminals, victims, politicians, stars - and all those who accidentally happened to walk past when the news camera was there.
By transforming news images into art and by changing their context, the artist opens up to new interpretations and perspectives. He also modifies the receiving context, turning the recipient of the work from a TV viewer to an art observer. Another track in the exhibition is about the production of value and commercialism. Everything in the exhibition is for sale at a relatively low price. And you can choose whether you wish to buy Hansson’s photos enlarged as paintings or as photographs. The artist, who is interested in playing with values, also sees the sale as a study and research in what the visitor will want to purchase when the painting and the photography are sold at the same price, in a context where photography is historically valued lower than paintings. The works of art also turns into some kind of souvenirs, something that the visitors can take with them after having experienced their "journey" through the exhibition.
In Marcus Hansson's art the relationship between the original and the copy is central on several levels. It is, for instance, common for his art works to consist of some kind of artisan mass production and repetition. It is about exaggerations in numbers, such as with the numerous dolls and photographs, as well as re-repetitions that never turn static, but instead show traces of the genesis process in terms of flaws. The art works can often, as in People from the news, be seen as a great whole, with a content composed of smaller parts that are similar but not identical. Thus the form of his production consists of a systematic abundance as well as a conceptual complexity.
Text: Angelica Blom Hage Operations Manager Gotland Museum of Art
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This spring the Gotland Museum of Art hosts two new solo exhibitions by artists Marcus Hansson and Pia Ingelse. The artists are born the same year, brought up on Gotland and each of them makes a comment about the souvenir doll in their exhibitions.
We’re talking about the doll you buy in a see through plastic tube, and bring home from your vacation abroad, dressed in some clothes typical for the country. Most often the dolls never leave the plastic tube and as they are actually dressed in old uniforms or national costume, one could wonder how typical they really are, or what they represent.
Marcus Hansson's dolls are dressed in a white shroud, after all perhaps the clothing that most people around the world share when dead. Their faces are photographs, and they have been broadcasted in the major news channels. It can be someone who just happened to pass through and cast a quick glance into the camera and the TV screen.
A sudden encounter with an unknown man, who we will probably never see again and who certainly doesn’t know about his doll depiction. It's almost a bit eerie and the dolls feel as strange and remarkable as the traditional souvenir dolls. Nevertheless, I feel that it is Marcus Hansson's dolls that are recognizable and provides a picture of how the world looks.
For when the world opens up and the boundaries are blurred everything also seems to be engulfed. All that is left is anonymous faces, the rest has disappeared into a communal haze where it is difficult to discern what is what.
As you continue into Marcus Hansson's exhibition called "Souvenirs" you will enter a world of images corresponding to the bulk sweets section of any supermarket. All you have to do is make your choice, and it's the same price whether you want an oil painting or a photograph. I very much enjoyed the commercial idea, it felt funny and thought-provoking and at what prices... Bulk candy art is clearly a lucrative idea.
Art review from konsten.net