Let It Go

Where do these objects come from? At the moment, they are sculptures arranged in the exhibition let it go, let it go by Benedikte Bjerre at Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany. But what were their lives before? Commodity products, shelving systems, candy, reproductions, helium balloons, shards from the natural world, photographs, currency, children’s toys, IKEA furniture, LED lights. But most recently they were sculptures arranged in other constellations, other settings.

What happens when the energy and speed that a work has been extracting power from is exhausted, or perhaps so overstimulated that there is only depletion? Upstarts turning into monopolies, strategies and aesthetics of resistance absorbed by the empire. How and in what state can the work then exist?

The publication let it go eliminates the repetition of the phrase in the exhibition title, borrowed from Elsa in the Disney film Frozen. It attempts to trace these questions by backtracking through the exhibition histories of all the works that were on display at Kunstverein Göttingen.

The volume is designed by Benedikte Bjerre together with Åbäke, and contains new commissioned texts by Tomke Braun and Rhea Dall.