Henning Lundkvist: inaktiv

There’s rarely much room to maneuver in contemporary art—most artistic practice consists of small variations on what’s already out there—but there are some places most artists don’t want to position themselves. They typically don’t want the viewer to be unsure, for example, whether they’re looking at art or some kind of quotidian debris, even in white-cube contexts designed to irradiate every minor material scrap with significance. They don’t want it to be ambiguous whether their artwork has any meaning. Or whether it’s finished, or whether the artist even knows what s/he is doing, has the situation under control. (So much art is a confidence trick.) Most artists prepare things for a public; unconsciously or not, they’re trying to get something right, successfully execute a plan or improvise their way towards satisfaction. Admit it or not, they’d like the viewer to be impressed with what they’ve done; to be, on some level, gratified.

None of this is Henning Lundkvist’s way. There is, his art suggests, counterintuitively fertile and nervy territory in slightness, accident, apparent unpreparedness. – excerpt from the exhibition text by Martin Herbert