Henrik Olesen: The Walk
The Wattis Institute, 360 Kansas Street (between 16th & 17th Streets), San Francisco
Mar 16-May 14, 2017
Henrik Olesen is best known for his spatial interventions, collage work, mixed-media sculptures, and text-based pieces that explore power structures and social constructions of identity.
His intensively researched projects address subjects such as political normalization, codes of law, natural sciences, distribution of wealth, and the relationship between man and machine.
The conventions and criminalization of homosexuality are recurring interests for Olesen. Past works have involved compilations of sodomy laws from around the world (Lack of Information, 2001); an atlas of rarely acknowledged expressions of same-sex desire or affection in Western art history (Some Faggy Gestures, 2008); and an imagined portrait of British mathematician Alan Turing, who, despite being credited with inventing the modern computer, was also persecuted for his sexual orientation (How Do I Make Myself a Body, 2009).
