photo Cesar Delgado Martín
"Hysterical Men II" is a large-format work alluding to the artist’s, Henrik Olesen, interest with the sphere of identity and dynamics of its transformations. Olesen dwells on fragments of history that are loosely connected with Turing’s biography and interlinks them, cuts them into pieces and repeats them, thus creating an open registry in which every single element constitutes an example that expands or contests the previous one; and highlights or ridicules the next one. The combination of portraits, among others, of a French politician, Dominik Strauss-Kahn, entangled in resounding social affairs, pope Francis during the feet washing ceremony, Bradley Manning / Chelsea Manning – the former transsexual soldier of American land forces or Ruby Rubacuori – the underage girlfriend of Silvio Berlusconi, constitutes a multi-layered reflection on power, betrayal and sexual hierarchy. Showing these figures one next to another, without any top-down rules, additionally surrounded by fragments of objects of everyday use (which are the signs of other potential – future or past – wholes), Olesen attempts to give an account of a world without centre – dynamic structure built on the vectors of individual desires, pointing in different directions.
Year: 2013 Medium: print on paper
Format: 204×585 cm
Material: paper background, ink Acquisition: purchase Ownership form: collection Source: Galerie Buchholz Index: MSN: 4300-21/2015 Acquisition date: Nov 24, 2015 Financing source: Cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage under the 'National collections of contemporary art 2015' priority