In this new body of work, Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen presents a mixture of new formal explorations and works more typical of his architectural painting. Especially the painting: The Green Revolution is remarkable for its two canvases joined together. The left canvas depicts 15 blue barrels painted in a photo-realistic manner, referencing pop artist Andy Warhols serial painting of soup cans and money notes, juxtaposed with a black canvas on the right. But where Warhol jubilates mass consumption as the new existential mode of industrial society Havsteen-Mikkelsen explores the hidden condition for this pattern of consumption: fossil fuels and how it was used to artificially control vast landscapes of agricultural production.
Other works in the show point towards how fossil fuels have altered our perception of reality. This is obvious in the panoramic painting 'Gaslighting' of a petrol station illuminated from the inside, creating a blurry nightscape. Gaslighting refers to when someone psychologically is manipulating reality – thereby making people doubt their sense of reality. Here, the title refers to how our use and access to fossil fuels change how we act and perceive ourselves as individual car owners, because of the freedom it generates by giving us access to explosive energy. We have been 'gaslighted' into our current idea of how we can move around in the world.
Yet, Havsteen-Mikkelsen also seems to offer an alternative to a world dominated by fossil capitalism (thereof the exhibition title: 'Fake Empire'). In the large painting: 'All Wild Forces Forward' we first see a blurry forest-like greenery, but after a closer look, we begin to see the remnants of a modernist building behind the canopy. In other words, the modernist house is being overtaken by wild nature again.
Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen (b. 1977) lives and works in Copenhagen. He holds a MFA from the Royal Danish Academy and between 2007-2015 he lived in Berlin. In 2023 the monograph 'One World or None – Planetary Aesthetics in the Ruins of Modernism' was published by Forlaget Aftryk with texts by art critic Louise Steiwer; he participated in the group show: 'Copenhagen, Copenhagen' at Nikolaj Kunsthal and he also exhibited with Mihalis Zacharias at MISC in Athens. In 2024 he has presented works at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton in connection with 'Pia Arke, Silencing and Stories'. In August 2024 he will participate in 'Danube Dialoges Festival' in Novi Sad, Serbia. His works are in collections throughout Europe, the US and South Korea.
