Family Man
ODRADEK, Copenhagen, DK
February 2014Opening: 14th of February 6–9 pm.
Open: 15th - 28th of February 2014: Wednesday-Friday 12–5 pm and Saturday/Sunday 12–3 pm.
ODRADEK: Gammel Kongevej 23, back building, 1610 Copenhagen V.
With the exhibition Family Man, we wish to mark the opening of the new artistic platform ODRADEK - a studio collective and a project space.
ODRADEK is currently run by 8 artists: Timothy Citizen, Simen Joachim Helsvig, Kim Young Kilde, Mathias Kryger (substitute), Asle Pettersen Lauvland, Trine Mee Sook Gleerup, Tue Sprogø and Marie Thams.
Invited artists, Family Man: Morten Espersen, Kristina Bengtsson, Honey Biba Beckerlee, Bonnie Fortune, Malte Fisker, Jonas Jensen, Stefan A. Pedersen and Emily Robertson.
The exhibition Family Man is shown in ODRADEK’s basement room; a rectangular, windowless room with a built-in shelf system. Eventually the room will be cleared of the shelves, but for the first exhibition the furniture is articulated as a display body, around which the show is structured.
With ODRADEK we wish to set focus on the process and dialogue in artistic practice and in the future we will present exhibitions, talks, reading groups, symposia and screenings.
Both the name of the platform and the exhibition title is a direct reference to Franz Kafka’s short story 'The Cares of A Family Man' (Die Sorge des Hausvaters), written between 1914-17 and published in Danish in 1941. In the story Kafka introduces the phenomenon Odradek, an intangible and indefinite part of the family man’s existence: both body and non-body, object and non-object, a physical or psychological character, libido in the form of an amputated organ or simply the family man’s constant longing for a different life.
Kafka's text can be read as an invitation to critically examine the question of productivity – artistic as well as material. With the opening of ODRADEK we accept this challenge, introducing a new open platform for artistic activities, with a focus on an extended community.
