Nielsen & Johnsen have worked together since 1994. A large part of their work starts out from people’s relationship with television and the various ways in which we relate to reality. They examine patterns of behaviour and our often subjective relationship with both general historical problems and the various cultures of which we are part. This reveals some of the identity problems in which we find ourselves.

Inclusion and exclusion

The exhibition in ARoS will be a wide-ranging study of the concepts of inclusion and exclusion. Three of the artists’ new video installations will be shown in this exhibition for the first time, each of them in its own way examining the relationship between the individual and the surrounding world. Human beings are thus at the centre and are both included and excluded in their relationship with society and the world.

Older works to

The exhibition will also be showing some older works harking back to the artists’ extensive production. These retrospective works relate to other aspects of the concepts of inclusion and exclusion. While the older works such as Construction in Space and Peeling Onions draw on gender-conscious themes and play with various narrative techniques, the more recent works relate to the schism between individual and personal problems as opposed to universal and more global questions. The figures in Nielsen and Johnsen’s new works are either excluded by swooning or can otherwise be included in the major political considerations of the surrounding world.

Responsible for the exhibition: Lise Pennington