TODAY'S CAKE IS A LOG / 2015

TODAY’S CAKE IS A LOG

A Performative Exhibition by Hotel Pro Forma

2015

PARTICIPANTS

HOTEL PRO FORMA

Concept, staging Kirsten Dehlholm
Painting Jacob Petersen, Anne Mette Fisker Langkjer, Aleksandra Rakic
Sound design Kristian Hverring, Tobias Lukassen
Light design Jesper Kongshaug, Luaras Morina
Architecture model Sofia Jonsson
UV light room Jakob Oredsson
Cat sculptures Michael Kirkegaard
Flash room videodesign Adam Ryde Ankarfeldt
Staircase sound Luis Vieira
Staircase video Virginie Serneels
Video editing Aleksandra Rakic
Model work, text selection, painting draft, graphic design, constructions Atelier Hotel Pro Forma: Anna Emilie Groth, Zaneta Drzymala-Tabaczuk, Sofia Jonsson, Dalin Waldo, Luaras Morina, Jolita Simelioniene, Eglė Vitkutė, Nina Hjalmarsdottir, Henriette Moth, Tora Frogner, Nina Marcussen, Anton Zaitchenko, Isa Wolke, Filip Meinelt, Giulia Messia, Nanna Møllegård Madsen, Luka Pavelka, Peter Petersen, Asger Jacobsen

Performers 130 persons

Project Manager Johanna Maj Thorning
Production Designer Jacob Petersen
Video Production Designer Adam Ryde Ankarfeldt
Performance Coordinator Lisbeth Jacobi
Manager Peter Jentzsch
Artistic Director Kirsten Dehlholm

KUNSTFORENINGEN GL STRAND

Director Helle Behrndt
Exhibition Director Anne Kielgast
Head of Communications and Sponsorships Pernille Wahlgren
Technical Manager Jon Lewis

TODAY’S CAKE IS A LOG is financed by Wilhelm Hansen Fonden.

The exhibitions at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND are supported by the Danish Arts Foundation and the Municipality of Copenhagen.

Reviews

♥♥♥♥♥ Politiken (DK), November 2015
It Almost Makes One Weep with Gratitude
“Today’s cake is a log” does not appear to be a conserving, self-mythologising affair, but a generous gesture that feels inclusive and enthralling to be a part of. Also without previous knowledge.
– Mathias Kryger

♥♥♥♥♥ Politiken (DK), November 2015
Suddenly I am sucked into the genuine Hotel Pro Forma universe, where scale and dimension are always subject to negotiation, where what one first assumes is reality incarnate is transformed into something abstract, or vice versa.
For it is of course not dry theatrical history that Hotel Pro Forma’s exhibition relates in pictures, models, costumes, sounds and words.
… the freaked performance images of decades flicker past on a screen: slightly grainy and without any obvious coherence they remind one most of all of a wonderful and sinister dream. Or of the seconds in which the loveliest scenes of a whole life file past, just before death takes place. One was there. But when and with whom? Thirty years of gallopingly intense near-death experiences. It almost makes one weep. And feel profoundly grateful.
– Lise Garsdal

Read the two reviews here

***** Berlingske (DK), November 2015
The Stuff that Dreams are Made of
[The exhibition] … is so measured and thoroughly masticated that – even without the retrospective reference to performances and installations over three decades – it could function as an art installation in itself against the cool white walls of the lovely rooms. As an artistic experience here and now. As in the theatre – or wherever Kirsten Dehlholm has found herself – it is a question of the ability of the onlooker to see and listen. And to observe him- or herself while doing so.
– Jakob Steen Olsen

Read the full review here

Information (DK), November 2015
The Hotel’s Secret Rooms
At Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand, Kirsten Dehlholm is now celebrating her own theatre company with an exhibition that boils down 30 years of exploration into installations in eight rooms. It is nothing less than sublime. One’s senses are so strongly under attack that one sweats and freezes at one and the same time. And here there are sounds that cause the body to shift suddenly before one’s thoughts register it – and images that cause the body to lose its footing. The intellect is quite simply stabbed in the back by the senses – and so everything is as it should be.
– Anne Middelboe Christensen

Read the full review here

First performances

Today's cake is a log. Photo: Kirsten Dehlholm

Today's cake is a log: The view is painted - including performer. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Today's cake is a log: The view is painted. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Today's cake is a log. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Today's cake is a log: The one who whispers. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Today's cake is a log. Photo: Claudi Thyrrestrup

Today's cake is a log: I only appear to be dead. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Today's cake is a log: Performances. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Today's cake is a log: War Sum Up - and performer. Photo: Torben Eskerod

Hotel Pro Forma celebrated its 30th anniversary with a combined exhibition and performance at the Danish exhibition hall Kunstforeningen GL STRAND. In close collaboration with GL STRAND, Hotel Pro Forma developed a hybrid, which showed works from the last 30 years, while also presenting GL STRAND’s historic spaces in a new Hotel Pro Forma staging.

During the three-week exhibition period (6-29 November 2015), a total of 150 performers was reading from texts written for Hotel Pro Forma’s many productions.

Today’s Cake is a Log, the woman announced as she pushed her catering trolley through the Danish State Railways-train. It struck me just how easily a few words can completely alter the meaning of everyday phenomena. It also struck me that the cake of today, which in 2015 is a 30 year birthday cake for Hotel Pro Forma, must be the size of a whole log. During this period, Hotel Pro Forma has produced more than 50 productions, and this was to be marked by an exhibition that both was looking forward and drawing on the past. A new work that was focusing on the performing art as an artwork. Today´s Cake is a Log is a performance, an exhibition, an attitude created exclusively for Kunstforeningen GL STRAND.
– Kirsten Dehlholm, founder of Hotel Pro Forma.

Room by room, GL STRAND was taken over by site-specific stagings, where live performances as well as tableaux vivants were recurring phenomena. The works from 30 years of international artistic activity was moved out of the archives, out of the theatre and straight into the framework of visual art. Visitors could view or re-view images and sequences from the manga-opera WAR SUM UP, experience the choir on the staircase from the worldwide success of OPERATION : ORFEO, or refresh their memory of the Hans Christian Andersen performance I ONLY APPEAR TO BE DEAD. And what actually happened when THEREMIN was merged with LAUGHTER IN THE DARK, or when CARPE CARPE CARPE was mixed with COSMOS+?

The view from GL STRAND acted as a mega-sized backdrop for the live performers who presented texts from Hotel Pro Forma’s performances – continuously throughout the duration of the exhibition. Amongst the performers was one of the children from CARPE CARPE CARPE (1989). Today, he is a grown man at 33. The texts were written by the acclaimed Danish writers Inger Christensen, Ib Michael, Søren Ulrik Thomsen, Morten Søndergaard, Christina Hesselholdt, Peter Seeberg and many others.

The exhibition/performance did not require any prior knowledge of Hotel Pro Forma. It was part of the on-going and curious investigation, which always takes place in the works by Hotel Pro Forma. With a point of departure in the perceptible world, it is an investigation which challenges current notions of form, phenomena and genres.

TODAY’S CAKE IS A LOG is staged by Kirsten Dehlholm, Artistic Director of Hotel Pro Forma.

Danish

DAGENS KAGE ER EN TRÆSTAMME
En performativ udstilling af Hotel Pro Forma
2015

“Dagens kage er en træstamme”, sagde damen, da hun kørte servicevognen gennem DSB-toget. Det slog mig, hvordan dagligdagens fænomener kan ændre sig blot ved at blive omdefineret med nogle få ord. Det slog mig også, at dagens kage, som i 2015 er en 30 års fødselsdagskage til Hotel Pro Forma, må være på størrelse med en træstamme. Hotel Pro Forma har skabt mere end 50 produktioner inden for den periode, og det skal markeres med en anderledes udstilling, der både viser frem og peger tilbage. Et nyt værk, der fokuserer på scenekunsten som kunst. DAGENS KAGE ER EN TRÆSTAMME er en forestilling, en udstilling, en indstilling skabt specielt til Kunstforeningen GL STRAND.
– Kirsten Dehlholm, grundlægger af Hotel Pro Forma.

Rum for rum bliver GL STRAND indtaget med stedsspecifikke iscene-sættelser, hvor live performance og levende tableauer er gennemgående fænomener. Værker fra 30 års internationalt virke flytter ud af arkiverne, ud af teatret og direkte ind i billedkunstens rammer. Se eller gense billeder og sekvenser fra manga-operaen WAR SUM UP, oplev koret på trappen fra verdenssuccessen OPERATION : ORFEO eller genopfrisk H.C. Andersen-forestillingen JEG ER KUN SKINDØD. Og hvad sker der, når man krydser THEREMIN med LATTER I MØRKET, eller hvis man blander CARPE CARPE CARPE med KOSMOS+?

Se video optagelser af live streaming her

Udsigten fra GL STRAND skabes som et megastort maleri, der danner baggrund for live performere, som fremfører tekster fra Hotel Pro Formas forestillinger – kontinuerligt gennem hele udstillingsperioden. Blandt de medvirkende er f.eks. et af børnene fra CARPE CARPE CARPE (1989). Han er nu er en voksen mand på 33 år. Tekster er skrevet af Inger Christensen, Ib Michael, Søren Ulrik Thomsen, Morten Søndergaard, Christina Hesselholdt, Peter Seeberg og mange andre.

Udstillingen / forestillingen kræver ikke et forhåndskendskab til Hotel Pro Forma. Den er en del af den vedvarende og nysgerrige undersøgelse, som altid finder sted i Hotel Pro Formas værker. En undersøgelse, der med afsæt i det visuelle, udfordrer gængse opfattelser af form, fænomener og genrer.

Dagens kage er en træstamme er iscenesat af Kirsten Dehlholm, kunstnerisk leder af Hotel Pro Forma.