Simon Dybbroe Møller: Like Origami Gone Wrong

by Jan Verwoert

Simon Dybbroe Møller's first monograph folds Modernist art history into something new. His interest stems in part from personal nostalgia and in part from intellectual fascination; he once told an interviewer, "You and I grew up in a society where a certain kind of provincial Modernism has had a major influence on how schools are constructed and everything. Furthermore, Modernism represents--and I guess it is almost a cliché to say--the last period of utopia, and a belief in actually producing truths." One installation, a darkened room with scattered light sources and projection screens, recalls both a party and the fusty setting of an academic conference; in another, a portrait of Le Corbusier emerges from a stain in the ceiling. Frieze magazine has called Møller's celebration of both the past and the uninterrupted march of artistic progress "a welcome alternative to thinking about art history as a daunting public library with strict rules for readers."

Hardcover

First published September 1, 2007