Fernisering – Gardar Eide Einarsson: Groaning, Nixon’s Voice

The exhibition features a new series of gouaches on paper, where fragments of closed captioning appear at the bottom edge of monochrome fields. These works reflect Einarsson’s ongoing interest in text, silence, and systems of meaning, asking how language operates when detached from its original source.

Using phrases like (hyperventilating), (missile whistling) and [continuous banging], the works evoke both cinematic language and political resonance. Stripped of image and sound, what remains is a visual and conceptual field where history, memory, and perception converge.

Text by Bob Nickas, New York, July 23, 2025:

"What do we hear when we see a word or a phrase related to sound? Do we hear anything at all? [Pleasant music playing distantly.] Can you imagine that? We can’t, not exactly. It’s too vague. [Hyperventilating.] That we can hear easily, hear in scare quotes. The sound of panic, or an asthma attack. (Missile Whistling.) Yes, just ask anyone in Kyiv or Kharkiv these days. Although the phrase “missile whistling” is imbued with a sense of poetics, outside of war zones, of course, the two words acoustically rhyming as they do, you wouldn’t want to be in any proximity to them."

Kilde:
NILS STÆRK