Sofie Bird Møller. Catch Me If You Can

The Danish artist (b. 1974) has already made a name for herself on the German art scene. Martin Asbæk Gallery is therefore proud to present the artist’s first solo exhibition in Denmark. Sofie Bird Møller is best known for the series Interferences, which makes use of advertisements from exclusive fashion magazines and journalistic periodicals, pain¬ted over with precision and controlled spontaneity using a brush, so that the female models appear evocative and abstract, almost anthropomorphic in expression. The exhibition presents the series Las Rudas and Interaction as well as an art film, Catch Me If You Can.

LAS RUDAS The series Las Rudas consists of modified monochrome photographs of female mar¬tial arts practitioners from an unnamed catalogue about Mexican wrestling. Clear structural traces in acrylic paint are left after the artist has used the palms of her hands and her fingers in the creation of the works. Sofie Bird Møller overpaints photographs to mix the expressive painting with figura¬tive photographs from reality. The photographs are all stagings of nude or partly nude women in the midst of fight scenes, either in a boxing ring or in more domestic surroundings. The series Las Rudas is deeply erotic, elegant and harmonious with expressive painting in a wide spectrum of colours shimmering in and out among one another.

INTERACTION The three posters in 180 x 120 cm format have earlier been exposed in city spaces and have interacted with the passers-by, after which they have been modi¬fied by Sofie Bird Møller so that their original message is concealed. The artist has used her body as a brush, so the stylish models on the posters are wholly or partly hidden. Only the slightly crumpled surfaces of the posters reveal that they have been displayed in the urban space. This patina gives the works a raw look and is a quite deliberate device from the artist.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN Lastly, the exhibition presents a 7-minute art film on a TV from the 1970s. The film is edited together from six black-and-white films from 1933-51, based on the science-fiction book The Invisible Man. The film involves a disturbing psychological analysis of the human mind and poses an interesting problem; for how would we react if we could make ourselves invisible? In the film we expe¬ri¬ence a triangle drama where the characters are invisible; only their move¬ments in the surroundings are experienced. They play cards, drink wine and smoke cigarettes – but the smoke comes from nothingness, or from the absence of an existing person. All in all, the film is a seven-minute, fascinating pseudo-action, where it is impossible to pin down or capture the invisible figure.

THE ARTIST Sofie Bird Møller (b. 1974) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. In 1999 she began her training at the Akademie der Bildende Künste in Munich, then went on ex¬change to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and graduated as a Master of Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London in 2007. Sofie Bird Møller has exhibited in Germany, France and Denmark and is repre¬sented in a number of recognized private collections. Most recently the artist has published a catalogue with texts by the art critic Laura Henseler, the curator Anders Kold of the Louisiana Museum and the German art collector Wil¬helm Schürmann. The catalogue has been published by Snoeck in Cologne in 2011 and is on sale at the Martin Asbæk Gallery.

Sofie Bird Møller
Catch Me If You Can