Agnieszka Kurant : Unknown Unknown

Lucie Fontaine is proud to present “Unknown Unknown”, a solo show by Agnieszka Kurant, the first to take place at her Stockholm space located at Maria Skolgata 83. At 6 pm the artist will give a talk – part of the series “Body of Work” –, which will be followed by the opening from 7 pm to 9 pm. The show is open from Monday to Friday from 9 am to noon and from 1 pm to 5 pm or by appointment.

The title of the exhibition refers to Kurant’s longtime interest in the “unknown unknown” of knowledge, “general intellect” and collective intelligence, virtual capital, imaginary and immaterial property, immaterial labor, hybrid status, value, form, format and authorship of objects as well as the new modes of production, distribution and dispersion in cognitive capitalism. Her work related to the “economy of the invisible” explores how things created as fictions, rumors, paranormal phenomena, myths; objects not existing materially, enter into the economy of the contemporary world, how even the imaginary or the existence of the future in the present is also colonized, valorized and politicized.

The artist is interested in the hybrid status of things: hybrid values, authorship, production, dispersion and ownership as well as the notion of aura. Her works are in constant transformation and have shifted their status and value in different ways since they were created, depending of different quasi-fictional or unexpected factors, parameters and contexts operating in reality, such as the impact of rumors, fictions or the weather on economy and politics. Kurant is also interested in the use/misuse/abuse of objects transforming their aura, purpose and exchange value. The show refers also to the idea of non-knowledge as described by Sarat Maharaj and to the idea of the existence of Extremely Rare Events/Black Swans – as described by Nassim Taleb – and how they can be capitalized on. Trying to interpret the world logically can often lead us to experience a fictional version of reality. Exploring fictions, uncertainty, paradoxes, black swans and the “unknown unknown,” her works try to exceed the limits of logic of time, space, language and knowledge and imagine the existence of alternative economies in a multi-verse.

In Future Anterior (2007) the artist produced a version of The New York Times from the year 2020. A professional clairvoyant who collaborates regularly with Interpol, police and governments and is a reliable source of information for businessmen and politicians was asked to create a forecast of what will happen in and around 2020. These forecasts were later developed by the artist into an issue of The New York Times featuring articles written by several regular contributors of the publication. The newspaper has all the parameters of The New York Times from a bar code to advertisements bought by existing companies. It is however printed with disappearing ink, which becomes completely invisible above 29 and 21 degrees and comes back to black when it is cooled down. As a result the newspaper appears and disappears depending on the weather conditions.

Phantom Library (2011) is a project, which consisted in creating a library of fictional, invisible books – books that don’t exist, except in the pages of other books.  Fictional, imaginary books unwritten, unread, unpublished mentioned or described in real books by authors such as Philip K. Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Brautigan. Kurant produced the fictional invisible books as real sculptural objects for which she bought ISBN numbers and barcodes to give them status in the material world. Behind each book there is a complex economy of its production process designed to manufacture hundreds or thousands of copies. In this piece the complex and costly economy serves to produce just one single copy of each book, imagining a new hybrid mode of production between singularity, individuality and mass production. The covers of the books were designed in collaboration with the artist and graphic designer Kasia Korczak from the collective Slavs and Tatars.

Map of Phantom Islands (2011) is a map of the world including only fictional islands, a map of imaginary territories where colonial influences and power relations can also easily be shown. The maps depict all the phantom islands that during the history of civilization were ever shown on maps of the world as results of mirages observed in different places around the globe, cartography errors, misconceptions about the world, rumors, myth and legends. Some phantom islands were also intentional errors of explorers who tried to persuade governments to get money for conquering new lands and invented and placed on maps on some nonexistent territories, which later continued appearing on other maps over the centuries. All these islands appeared once or a few times and with the time and development of knowledge and cartography gradually disappeared from maps but many of them remained until 1943, which was when they started aerial photography. Some caused real political conflicts and almost led to wars. The piece also includes an archive of 30 phantom islands with fragments of old maps where they appeared together with descriptions of their history and origin as well as additional information we have about these phantom territories related to their economy, regime of climate.

Agnieszka Kurant is an artist based in Warsaw and New York. In 2010 she represented Poland at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (with Aleksandra Wasilkowska). In 2008 she was one of the Frieze Projects artists. She presented her work at venues including: Witte de With in Rotterdam (2011), Venice Biennale (2011), Performa09, Athens Biennale (2009), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2008), Yvon Lambert in New York (2005), Creative Time in New York (2007), Mamco in Geneva (2006) and Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2004). Her forthcoming shows include a solo project at The Guggenheim Museum in New York (September 2012) and at Fortes Vilaça, Sao Paulo (June 2012).

The show is made possible through the support of Iaspis and the Polish Institute in Stockholm and if you need further information please contact Lucie Fontaine’s employees: employee@luciefontaine.com.