MY NEW YORK MAP

KIRSTEN JUSTESEN

November / December 2018

The exhibition My New York Map shows Justesen’s method of approaching her work as an artist. A method relying on the sculptor’s housewife practice of making use of existing conditions for work and production. It is essentially about using what is readily to hand. Making the surroundings work for you; turning the existing conditions into an extended l and integral part of the work. Like at a residency in NYC. A scene of galleries, studios, and venues frequented by Justesen during her stay. Noting down on paper what she heard and saw: MY NEW YORK MAP.

The city has been mapped like a diary entry on the scrap of a paper roll accidentally left in the studio. Sufficient for five months’ worth of notes. Easy to roll up and bring along: SHE LET THE WALL MAKE THE STATEMENT.

The ambiguous chaos of drawings and quotes are added collages of special-offer slogans and one-liners. Impressions, expressions, and cuttings from adverts and flyers in infinite colours have been collected and organised using the colour spectrum of the rainbow as a guiding principle. The sea of special offers vibrates as a phenomenon suspended between the formal qualities of the colours and the mythological, cultural, and symbolic inferences of the rainbow.

Justesen has used a similar approach in her work with clay as a material. Her most recent work 1 x Black 1:1, 3 x 37 Man- Hours, at Tommerup 2017/18 was created as a result of an invitation to a show, which also comprised materials and artisans for a production at Tommerup Ceramic Workshop: A full-scale cast of the artist’s body, shaped in black stoneware clay during 3 x 37 working hours. The man-hours have literally been worked into the material. Engraved into the clay as part of the sculpture in its finished form.