Camera Obscura

Galleri Thomas Wallner is pleased to present the exhibition Camera Obscura by
Anders Krisár who focuses primarily on sculptural objects and photography. What defines Krisár’s particular worldview is his keen sense of aesthetics, which manages to balance his need to investigate deep-rooted traumas with stringent conceptualism.

Installed in the gallery, Krisár’s Camera Obscura (2020) comprises four large-format analog photographic prints. Each photograph is shot from above, closely framed to show what appears to be his bare torso and a mirror that partially reflects it. Uncannily, this hyperreal torso is a polyester resin impression and a negative object. Look closely at the photographs and the shadows will reveal the reverse of what the eye expects: the rib cage and sternum sink inward where they should protrude and the belly button extends outward to a sharp peak.

Hanging on the wall is a life size copy of this negative torso here carved in black marble and also titled Camera Obscura (2020). This sculpture is situated across from a painting on paper by Krisár’s father Mårten Havalai. It shows a human figure, the head lowered as if in prostration. Thick, expressionist brushstrokes give it palpable weight, but also convey speedy execution—the hands represented by bursts of pigment and the body no more than a few quick passages of brushwork.

Living and breathing alongside the four photographs are four large blocks of cream-colored wax resting on black bases, titled Bronze/Wax (2019–20). Buried inside each block is a bronze cast of the face of the artist’s late mother. The casts, which are connected to an electrical source, heat up and cool down at regular, staggered intervals: one block will be at the highest setting, revealing the serene face beneath an oval pool of translucent amber liquid; one block will have just begun heating, its features not yet fully visible; one will be cooling, the head growing cloudy beneath congealing wax; finally, one will be completely cool, its contents entirely occluded. With the first heating and cooling, the wax blocks will reset in coagulated waves and magma-like pourings, drips, and splatters.

Anders Krisár live and work in Stockholm. He is soon to exhibit at Zuckerman Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia and recently exhibited at Dom Museum in Vienna. This spring Krisár was invited to lecture about his art at Harvard University in Boston.