July 11, 2011, Last Call

Laerke Lauta: Out of the Desert

Mon, Jul 11, 2011

Out of the Desert takes place in Los Angeles during an unusually hot day, the result of intense Santa Ana winds blowing in from the Mojave Desert. The people and the city are running at half speed. There is also a heightened tension--sexual, restrained, or aggressive, expressed in subtle ways--a stillness before the storm, as if something is about to explode. Out of the Desert consists of a series of scenes played out between a man and a woman on various indoor and outdoor locations in Los Angeles. In each of the scenes there is a man and a woman, and then there is something else happening between them, something more abstract that takes place in their mind. In one scene you see a woman in full figure, stretched out on the grass by the beach, playing with a lighter. On a second channel you see her sweater, lying beside her, catching on fire. On a third channel you see, again, a close up of her arm, however, in this projection a man's hand is holding her wrist in a firm grip, pressing it down into the grass.

Drawing from a northern European tradition that ascribes romantic, spiritual, and enigmatic qualities to the natural landscape, Lauta's video installations map internal and external states of consciousness and are characterized by an undertone of unresolved suspense--the latent fear of a fatal event that is not directly revealed. The artist's camera does not present a decisive moment but functions instead as an instrument of premonition and doubt. Austere light, a lush palette, and evocative sound combine in Lauta's work to create liminal spaces that linger in memory, bringing together feelings of exhilaration, suspense, and danger.

Laerke Lauta was born 1974 in Denmark and studied at the Royal Danish Art Academy in Copenhagen (Master of Arts, 2001), the Cooper Union, New York City (1997), and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1995-1997). Her works have been featured most recently in solo exhibitions at the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, and Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA, as well as in numerous venues throughout Europe and the Middle East, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK; The National Gallery of Denmark; The Brandts Museum, DK; Randers Museum of Art, DK; Møstings Hus, Copenhangen; Aarhus Center for Contemporary Art, DK; Altonaer Museum, Hamburg, Germany; Landesgalerie/Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria; 7th International Photography Gathering, Aleppo, Syria; and ARTGENDA-2002 Biennale for Young Artist, Hamburg, Germany, among others. Upcoming solo exhibitions include "Hotel Auralia" at the Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Denmark.