LONDON.- Where the People Will Go brings together new and existing works by Danish artist Tue Greenfort which respond to the
South London Gallery’s history and architecture, its changing role within its local context and its relationship with neighbouring Sceaux Gardens housing estate.
The exhibition builds on the artist’s work over the past ten years, as well as ideas he began to explore when he made a site-specific work for the 2009 group show at the SLG, Beyond These Walls. As part of that show Greenfort created a direct access route from the estate to the gallery, shifting the physical relationship between the two locations. For his solo exhibition the artist opens up that entrance once again as just one element of many within a complex installation, which explores a diverse range of themes related to ideas around environmentalism, The Commons and political ecology, with specific reference to the SLG’s history and location.
Greenfort explores these ideas whilst making works with references to the architecture of the SLG. Responding to the statement “the source of art is in the life of a people” which is inlaid in the gallery’s original Walter Crane floor, Greenfort re-configures the marquetry design within a fabric sculpture. Another work takes as its point of departure the 1972 book Limits to Growth, which became seminal reading for environmentalists and policy makers. The book was translated into many languages and Greenfort presents a collection of different versions of the book’s cover art as a structural framework to discuss aspects of today’s climate change debate.
An audio installation, through sound feedback, explores the contrasting environments between the front and rear of the gallery: the traffic sounds of Peckham Road at the front and birdsong on Sceaux Gardens estate behind. In a further comment on the cyclical and interconnected nature of relationships forged through the gallery’s specific context, edible mushrooms have been cultivated by the artist on coffee grounds sourced from the gallery’s café and will be incorporated into a special dish throughout the exhibition.
Tue Greenfort was born in Holbćk, Denmark in 1973; he now lives and works in Denmark and Berlin. He studied in Denmark at the Academy of Fünen from 1997 – 2000, and continued his studies at the Stadelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt from 2000-2003. Alongside solo exhibitions including Frieze Projects, London (2008); Galeria Zero, Milan (2009); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig (2008); Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples (2008) and Johann König Gallery, Berlin (2007), he has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Beyond These Walls at the South London Gallery in 2009. His most recent solo exhibition was Flambant Neuf in the Johann König Galerie in Berlin in 2010; whilst he recently participated in the group show Alter Natur in Z33 in Belgium also in 2010.
