The Fiction of Elmgreen & Dragset: Interview. By Christopher Moore.
The art of Michael Elmgreen (b. 1961, Copenhagen, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (b.1969, Trondheim, Norway) treats the event and experience of exhibitions as their media—including theatrical interaction with the audience. While frequently playful, most of their work has a strong political seam including social-economic critiques, particularly regarding gay rights. They have presented shows mainly in Europe, including at the Serpentine Gallery and Tate Modern in London; the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam; ZKM, Karlsruhe; and Kunsthalle Zurich. In 2009 they represented Denmark and Norway at the Venice Biennale, and in 2012 participated in the Liverpool Biennial. In Autumn 2013, for their exhibition “Tomorrow” at The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Elmgreen & Dragset “redeveloped” parts of the museum as the apartment of a fictional architect. An exhibition called “Biography” has just opened at the Astrup Fearnley Museum, and simultaneously at Galerie Perrotin in Hong Kong—for the first time in Asia—which revisits themes encountered in their V&A show and also their cast bronze rocking boy sculpture from the empty Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square 2012, “Powerless Structures, Fig. 101”...
