TECTONICAL

FOLD is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen and Florian Schmidt, with a show of painting that explores the theme of Tectonics - the science or art of construction, both in relation to use, and artistic design. Tectonics is primarily concerned with the making of architecture in a modern world. In bringing the physical into the meta-physical, tectonics presents an idea of the poetics of construction.

A good example of Tectonics in architecture is the work of Bertold Lubetkin who, together with the group 'Tecton', was responsible for the Penguin Pool at London Zoo, a monument in British Modernist architecture. Lubetkin was also strongly influenced by Russian Constructivism and the works of Naum Gabo.

Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen explores painterly space, drawing inspiration from the built environment via photography and models. His paintings for this exhibition explore the utopian aspirations and technical innovations applied by Lubetkin. The images depict spaces or edifices created by Tecton but transformed into a painterly space. Havsteen- Mikkelsen presents these built environments as sites of conflict, the architectural structures being the visual representation of both a conscious and unconscious perception of the body .

Florian Schmidt's work revolves around the elementary questions of painting in the context of imagery. Using antipodal strategies, his work deals with the fundamental parameters of an abstract picture's constitution, which refers to both two-dimensional and three-dimensional visual ensembles. Surveying the traditions of art history and the formal language of abstraction, and by reflecting ambiguously on its repertoire and substance, Schmidt has for years devoted himself to a carefully considered exploration of compositional combinations. This exploration is both experimental and conceptual - with the intention of liberating the now hundred-year history of abstraction from its formal heaviness and making it relevant for the present day.

In this show there is a tension between the work, in how their compositions play with ideas of expansion and contraction, but also a strong dialogue that is rooted in painting, Constructivism, abstraction and ideas of space in architecture.