"dean martin delirium+"

Kaj Nyborg

+
Cecilia Westerberg

(Project Room)

Stalke Galleri was pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition featuring Kaj Nyborg and, in the Project Room, Cecilia Westerberg.

Kaj Nyborg presented the exhibition dean martin delirium +, consisting of installation objects and photographs that critically examined social constructs and their conditions.

dean martin delirium +took its title from the actor, entertainer, and singer Dean Martin, who in this exhibition functioned solely as a medium through which the artist explored societal concepts of space and room. From childhood, Nyborg remembered Dean Martin’s figure from his television show, which first aired in Denmark in the 1970s. Martin performed in a setting that mimicked la dolce vitain middle-class homes, with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Dean Martin’s television persona embodied the image of a man who was both carefree and self-destructive at the same time. He represented nostalgia and the collapse of the middle class: the familiar and secure, as well as the destruction and distortion of these notions.

Nyborg’s work referenced Dean Martin as an image of the familiar drawn from reality but, at the same time, no longer entirely real. His works took recognizable objects from everyday life, such as a dollhouse or curtains, and reshaped them to alter their appearance and function, challenging their familiarity and unsettling the viewer. Nyborg worked with aluminum—an industrial and clinical material—which distanced itself from the everyday while maintaining its utility. Strategically and conceptually, Nyborg manipulated the familiar, transforming the ordinary into something strange and disconcerting, offering a perspective on global delirium.

In the Project Room, Cecilia Westerberg presented the exhibition Night Swarmswith animation works and drawings. In these animations, a night swarm and a summer bird appeared, exploring themes of dreams and magic that emerged while we slept or daydreamed. The imagery of the night swarm and the summer bird created a metaphor for longing for freedom and imagination. Westerberg’s works elevated the dream world into an intense, vibrant dimension, transforming everyday life into a state of wonder and play. Her animations were inspired by Disney classics such as Fantasia, where magic dissolved time and created fantastic, poetic imagery.

Kaj Nyborg’s aluminum works were completed at the State Workshops for Art and Craft.
Cecilia Westerberg’s exhibition was supported by the Art Fund.

Kaj Nyborg, Stalke Galleri, 2004

Kaj Nyborg, dean martin delirium +, Stalke Galleri, 2004.

Cecilia Westerberg, Night Swarms, Project Room, Stalke Galleri, 2004.

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