The exhibition consists of interactive installations, sculptures and films created by the Swedish artist-duo Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström. Eye of the Storm features works looking at the theme of weather and climate and how it threatens and affects the human race – an ongoing theme in their 30 year long careers.

Through the works, visitors can follow the different phases of Bigert & Bergström and their contribution to the Swedish and international art scenes. Eye of the Storm is an exhibition that moves the senses and invites viewers to participate actively. Bigert & Bergström take their starting point from scientific theories and historical events. They create a willful access point to complex issues where creativity and science merge visually.

The exhibition builds on our awareness that natural disasters are something physical and intrusive. How the comfortable can suddenly be turned into something threatening. Extreme natural events are experienced and contemplated during the exhibition at Artipelag. What thoughts go through your head when it disappears in a cloud of steam? And how does it really feel to stand in the eye of the storm?

Bigert & Bergström’s works are like a centrifuge, a rolling point of intersection between man, nature and technology. Their art reflects on deep time as well as the volatile prognosis for tomorrow. In their new installation, The Weather – a Synoptic Battlefield, historical turning points are materialized as sculptural weather maps. They show, amongst other examples, how Napoleon’s attacking forces were severely depleted by the Russian winter in 1812; and how the typhoon Kamikaze saved Japan from a Mongolian invasion in 1281.

In 1986, Bigert & Bergström met at the Stockholm Royal Academy of Art. Since then, they have created a variety of projects, large-scale installations, sculptures and films. In Sweden, they are best known for their large-scale installations such as The Climate Chambers and Tomorrow’s Weather at the Stockholm Central Station, which consists of hanging clusters of atmospheric molecules that change colour depending on the weather forecast for the following day. Also, their much talked about art piece that covered the southern tip of Sweden’s highest mountain, Kebnekaise, with a rescue blanket preventing it from melting. Recently, their egg-shaped sauna Solar Egg received international attention in art, design and architecture press.

Artipelag believes that the work of Bigert & Bergström highlights a current and important topic. They don’t just make us reflect on how humans attack their own climate, but also show the human obsession over controlling it at the same time. The duo exposes the red thread that runs between the increasingly frequent climate disasters and our air-conditioned malls where the temperature is controlled to within tenths of a degree.

 

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BILINGUAL EXHIBITION HANDOUT