Attachments
Solo exhibition by Kåre Frang
Curated by: Boyana Dzhikova

Once upon a time there was an old sow who had three little pigs and because she didn't have enough food for them, she told them that they had better go out into the world to seek their fortune.

The biggest piglet went first. And as it trotted along, it met a man carrying a bundle of straw. Very politely he asked him to give him some straw to build a home. The man agreed, and the little pig built himself a wonderful house. However, the wolf came along, saw a potential dinner, and despite the piglet's resistance, blew hard on the building, it was thrown about, and so the piglet was eaten.


The second pig decided to build its shelter using nonrenewable natural resources. The house turned out great - shiny, with warm colours and Bauhaus shapes. Little by little, however, the building caved in - the trees the piglet had cut down to build it didn't control the water and the area flooded. The strong sun scorched its facade and in combination with the violent winds the house began to crumble. Meanwhile, the wolf, who was anyway annoyed by the situation caused by the pig, which directly affected him, was hanging around, knowing sooner or later the house would collapse. The piglet was aware of the longterm consequences, but ingonred the situation. Still, he suffered from growing anxiety and insomnia. And the wolf was waiting..


_______


In the exhibition "Attachments", artist Kaare Frang continues his practice of working with biscuits. In the spaces of POSTA and PUNTA gallery are sculptures created in Copenhagen and Sofia, during the artist's one-week stay here.


Initially, the exhibition in PUNTA confronts us with uncertainty due to its choice of medium - the biscuits "Gift of the Wheat", widely distributed on the Bulgarian market. Instinctively, we read wheat through our emotional attachment to it and its meanings - a source of sustenance, an integral part of almost all peoples' diets, an everyday element in the average household with ritual saturation. Because of its life-affirming function, its value transcends and entangles broad economic and political cases (most recently, the Ukrainian grain import deal, which established corridors for cargo ships to pass through the Black Sea), but also ones with long-term global concerns, such as the effect of the environmental crisis on this resource and its potential yield. Many of these factors we are consciously aware of, and others we choose to ignore in our everyday lives. The exhibition takes place. after all, in the age of anxiety in which we are trying and more or less failing to cope with the new world, using yesterday's tools and ideologies.


The artist exploits a medium conventionally associated with creating and sustaining life; however, being interested mostly in its other properties - its ephemerality. Thus, the exhibition seems to stand on a flawed foundation. Erosion, however, is its plan-program - throughout the following weeks, the works will disintegrate under the influence of the external environment, thus reminding us of the fragility of the world, its structures and systems. Frang highlights, through his choice of objects to reproduce (a globe, a bridge, an air conditioner, etc.), themes such as ecology, the movement of resources, industry and economy, encompassing the iconography of today's world of globalization.


Time in the gallery moves in parallel with global processes and man's current place on the world time-axis - the collapse has not happened yet, but we sense its imminent arrival. Contrary to the frozen temporality of the white cube, Kaare Frang's work in PUNTA reminds us that the passage of time is irreversible and certain. With the launch of the exhibition (the placement of the works in the gallery), the artist seems to be triggering a timer of apocalyptic events.

This project was made possible with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Culture.