Morrissey Foretelling the Death of Diana, 2006. Courtesy of the artist
Opening: Saturday, 27 June 2009 / 19:00
Exhibition Dates: 28 June – 30 August 2009
Press view: Friday, 26 June 2009 / 11:00
Lars Laumann (born in Norway in 1975, lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Oslo, Norway) has been invited to exhibit within 'Report on Probability', a group exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel presenting alternative readings of history through a narrative mode in which history is considered as a series of probabilities. Taking his cue from Brian Aldiss's 1968 novel Report on Probability, Adam Szymczyck, curator and director of Kunsthalle Basel, has invited artists Sven Augustijen, Andreas Bunte, Patricia Esquivias, Runo Lagomarsino, Lars Laumann, Anna Molska, Anna Niesterowicz & Lukasz Gutt and Corin Sworn in order to revisit history from multiple creative and critical viewpoints. The exhibition brings together a group of works that use a variety of approaches to comment on passages and moments in the history of modernity, avoiding the deterministic understanding of history as progress. Within 'Report on Probaility', Lars Laumann will exhibit the work Morrissey Foretelling the Death of Diana (2006), a video montage of found film and video footage, appropriated song fragments and a researched voice-over narrative, that suggests that Morrissey, the former lead singer of The Smiths, somehow anticipated the death of Princess Diana in 1997 via clues and asides hidden in his lyrics or embedded in images on The Smiths' record sleeves and music videos. For the occasion of 'Report on Probability', the video, which has three channels of sound – in English, French and German –, will be displayed as a back-projection with headphones alongside Laumann's silkscreen Hatful of Cocteau (2008).
Lars Lauman's participation within 'Report on Probability' is supported with a grant from OCA's International Support Programme.
For more information on 'Report on Probability', please visit www.kunsthallebasel.ch.
Screening Date: Monday, 29 June 2009 / 19:00
To reserve tickets, please call the Ica Box Office at +44 (0)20 7930 3647
As part of the series 'Artist's Film Club', Lars Laumann will present his film Berlinmuren at the ICA later this month. The film documents the real-life story of Eija-Riita Berliner-Mauer, a woman who married the Berlin Wall in 1979. Laumann's approach is not primarily documentary but is guided instead by a respectful interest in the idiosyncrasies of marginalised social phenomena – not only that such relationships are possible in modern popular culture, but also how society reacts to them.
The screening of Berlinmuren at the ICA is supported with a grant from OCA's International Support Programme.
Booking required. Please call the ICA Box Office on +44 (0)20 7930 3647 to reserve your tickets.
For more information on the screening of Berlinmuren, please visit www.ica.org.uk
Lars Laumann (born in Norway in 1975, lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Oslo, Norway) completed his studies at the National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo in 2001 and has since exhibited widely in Europe and the United States. Recent exhibitions of his work include the 5th Berlin Biennial, Berlin, Germany, 'The Dulcet of Clime of the Bedchamber', Goff & Rosenthal, Berlin, 'Update', White Columns, New York, NY, 'The Hidden', Maureen Paley, London, UK, 'Medium Cool', Art in General, New York, NY, 'Soft Spot', 0047,Oslo, Norway, and 'Monumento Mori', Astrup Fearnley Museet fro Moderne Kunst, Oslo, all of them 2008.