The practice of Danish artist Maj Kjærsig stands out as it challenges the beauty, absurdity, and anxieties of the human condition through sound, performance and ceramic installations centered on the finest of lines – one where different forms of material reverberation become the ultimate testing grounds.
Clay is one of the oldest materials used in the production of art – although this does not prevent a talented pack of Danish contemporary artists from finding it extremely contemporary – challenging earthy material components by combining them with various other media like sculptural or found objects, paint, graphic prints, video and electronic components in a surprising, delicate and raw manner.
In Kjærsig’s experimental approach to these materials, she strives to challenge boundaries of and utterly distress the given material properties. This is often done through studies where materials are dissolved or formed then smashed, deconstructed and merged. Like the age old Japanese tradition Kintsugi, it is acts of alteration and repair that are at the center of her practice. However, so are acts of calculated misstepping – because paired with Kjærsig’s norm critical thinking, where (any) laws of “nature” are always questioned – we see why boundaries, binaries and the given status quo are meant to be reviewed and challenged, featuring as constant themes in her work. This practice questions the relevance or value of anything present in our contemporary society to represent that same society in the future. As a reaction to this, almost as a form of new archaeological procedure, her works journey in space and time through materialities, while continuously giving away that it was hands that altered and made them. Her pieces draw us in, so close to the heart that it hurts, then propel us out into space, representing to us a special sensibility towards that which is both alien and alienated. It seems almost too porous to stand or hang on its own, too raw and unfiltered to possibly display softness while withstanding pressure. Yet, it stands. It reverberates, it moves us, and thus, catches our attention, reminding us that we are here, in this world, in our own porous unfathomable bodies governed by faulty rules and regulatory systems.
Imperative to understanding Kjærsig’s conceptual framework and approach to materials is her intuitive compilation of sound (analogue to digital), ceramics and other objects, as well a humorous delight in playing with contrasting elements like the connotations of high and pop-culture. In Kjærsig's work we see how different forms of material reverberation arrange and alter our relation to spatial, human and more-than-human environments. By expanding the field of resonance of the materials they become manifestations of literal or potential sound, and thereby work to highlight the mediatory role played by earthy materials in cultural history. The site-specific installations often involve ceramic and sound pieces, creating engaging compositions to explore ideas around the political ecology of things, (more-than-)human relationality and agency as well as environmental memory and sensory perception. These investigations into materials as “acoustic extensions” make the works gather an accumulated energy, that combined with the physical-sensory experience of the viewer give rise to a contemporary image of inquisitive revolt against our current day and age and a continuously questioning of communal-sensory co-living with the environments we inhabit.
Text by Karen Vestergaard Andersen