Allan_Otte_Landskabsmaleri_2008 - 72 sider - 15 - TIFF ... - Allan Otte

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INTRO: Glimpses of Reality
and Picturesque Moments
By Rasmus Vestergaard
A striking feature of the artistic expression at the
beginning of the 21st century is a pronounced and
renewed interest in ”reality”. Across various artistic
genres, there is a course of development towards
examining new constructions of reality. When confronted
with contemporary art, we are time and
time again faced with works that are orchestrated
like fi gurative and highly evocative narratives
which, due to a certain resemblance with reality,
seem to exist in a parallel and congruous physical
world. This course of development can be seen as
a special kind of realism which offers and suggests
new optical interpretations that can be used for
decoding our society, our lives.
As seen in recent art historical writings there
are crucial and evident signs that contemporary art
insists on conceptual as well as material freedom.
Works are often ugly, hideous, scary, and made of
everyday objects and they transcend traditional
categories such as painting, sculpture, and architecture
in favour of new artistic strategies and
forms of expression. In other words, we live in an
age – luckily – where the artistic experiment and
the exploration of new art forms seem to unfold
with great haste and intensity. By constantly
exploring new ways, absorbing new impulses, and
breaking national boundaries, art is seeking to
communicate whole complex sets of attitude that
promote both dialogue and confrontation. In continuation
of this, the very defi nition of a work of
art becomes a question that is directed at uncovering
cultural identities and living conditions.
It is precisely cultural identity, living conditions
and the defi nition of reality that is the recurrent
theme of Allan Otte’s unique works. This is where
his ”experiment” unfolds. The works belong to
a zone in-between, as the prosaically observing
scenes fascinate us by being decidedly recognizable
as well as extremely baffl ing. The realistic
quality of the works is counterbalanced by a surreal
feeling. The concrete point of departure is the
landscape. Otte clearly employs other strategies
when working with the landscape painting than
the ones we fi nd in the ideal and idyllic landscapes
that are typical of the national romanticism
of the Danish golden age. Otte’s landscape is raw
and unsentimental. The scenes are displayed as
characteristic mixed forms or cross-overs, uniting
classic panoramas with elements that, in a traditional
understanding of the scenic, do not belong
in a ”pure” portrayal of nature. On the one hand,
Otte’s provincial landscapes record the typical,
controlled, optimized, agricultural landscape, and
on the other, they are distorted by decay, accidents
and, not least, an arrested motion. We
meet Allan Otte’s Danish landscapes in silence. In
a state of ”after”. The buses have collided, the car
has landed in the ditch, the truck is overturned. All
we see are picturesque moments where the echo
of a preceding, sudden violence has died away.
The moment is deserted and stagnant.
The sense of momentary stagnation is emphasised
by the fact that the many roads and wrecked
vehicles of the paintings come across as amputated
signals of progress. When Allan Otte lets reality
come to a halt, it is part of a strategy, which
makes it possible to capture aspects of reality that
normally would not be embraced by our culturally
defi ned gaze. In Otte’s fi gurative universe the conventional
values have been turned upside down.
Aspects of reality that are often given a lower
priority are emphasized and consequently, at long
last, they fi nd their way to our desirable gaze.
By depicting the landscape as possessing this
“otherness” Otte not only succeeds in challeng-