January 24, 2025 March 23, 2025

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE

In the nervous hustle and bustle of the city, a group of artists has occupied this space on the border between inside and outside, between contemplation and consumption. The exhibited sculptures are located in this in-between space: between productivity and exhaustion, between effort and loss. At first glance absent, the body is accommodated in the interstices of these forms, for example through the movement of passers-by appearing on a reflective surface, or through the portrait of a man who was almost denied entry into history. There are objects whose function has been erased, which have become containers of an obsolete use: a hollowed-out computer, warm ice packs, prostheses on radiators or mechanisms and motors that are self-sustaining. These objects, both in conflict with and adapting to space, have proudly abandoned their commercial gloss and instead shine in their precariousness.

Surrender2025

Rubber band, cold packs, variable dimensions

Surrender artwork

Asma Ben Slama, Surrender, installation view, HFBK Boutique, 2025

An ice pack, often forgotten in the freezer or used to transport food, serves a dual purpose: the preservation of food or the relief of physical pain. Leaning against each other, these objects oscillate between the memory of lost objects and the representation of collective pain. Interrupted by a loose rubber band, commonly used to bundle products, the work connects the dysfunctionality of both the body and the object. Yet even in pain, the body continues to work, just as the cold packs, torn from their functional context, retain the ability to evoke memories and sensations.

Desiring Machines2025

Computer case, cable, paper, 230 x 27 cm

Desiring Machines artwork

Maxime Chabal, Desiring Machines, installation view, HFBK Boutique, 2025

In the center of the room stands a computer emptied of all components, which encompasses the architecture. An intense light penetrates the machine, which is reminiscent of both an advertising display case and a stained glass window. An ethereal face appears on one surface - that of Alan Turing, the inventor of modern computer technology. This scientist, who contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the Second World War, was persecuted in post-war England because of his homosexuality. This collage, as fragmentary as it is haunting, attempts to portray a man who was long excluded from the prevailing historiography. The archival materials used in the collage, such as trial records and old photographs, help to embody this dissident figure - a body that was denied a significant part of its subjectivity.

Venus in Leo2025

Plexiglas, steel, aluminum, gallium, oysters, 100 x 5 x 5 cm

Venus in Leo artwork

Adrien Lagrange, Venus in Leo, installation view, HFBK Boutique, 2025

This installation is based on six Plexiglas boxes, minimalist objects designed to hold and contain. The grid acts as a lid, allowing information to be exchanged between the inside and outside. Its pattern acts as a skeleton to which various heterogeneous elements are attached: materials that serve as containers for gallium—a metal used in microelectronics and known for its ability to change from a solid to a liquid state at 28 degrees Celsius, the lowest temperature the human body can reach. The state of this material therefore changes depending on the temperature emitted by the building's organism.

The long breath of a bad decision (et tutto abbraccio et nulla stringo)2025

Zinc/titanium sheet, etched UV prints, vacuum lifting bracket (print: Roemer Visscher, “Emblem X, from Sinnepoppen” Amsterdam, 1614, text on object: often something new, rarely something good). (Image: EU health warning, est. 2016, 40 x 60 x 15 cm

The long breath of a bad decision (et tutto abbraccio et nulla stringo) artwork

Sanna Leone, The long breath of a bad decision (et tutto abbraccio et nulla stringo), installation view, 2025

Two curved ovals made of zinc-titanium sheet metal reflect the building, its interior and exterior. The reflection is distorted, doubles in the window pane, collects light and movement that would not be reflected in a flat surface. The suction lifters break through the glass wall from the inside. They create an intermediate space consisting of a vacuum, of the non-existence of the surrounding space. Corresponding motifs are etched into the sheets with nitric acid. One of the motifs is a health warning, the other a 17th-century vanitas representation. That which is wants to be seen before that which can be takes over.

Emergence threshold (fragments 1-8)2025

Steel, metal wire, wood glue and corn starch, PVA film, glass marbles, motors, aluminum foil, electrical cable, hardware, fiberglass, epoxy resin, Plexiglas, polystyrene, epoxy resin, MDF, aluminum foil, variable dimensions

Emergence threshold (fragments 1-8) artwork

Raffaele Pola, Emergence threshold (fragments 1-8), 2024/25, installation view, HFBK Boutique, 2025

Raffaele Pola's sculpture consists of several elongated fragments whose composition is reminiscent of architectural details. Rusty metal frames, enveloped in a membrane-like skin, serve as an electrically conductive system connected to the surrounding space. Small vibrating motors sourced from mobile phones are embedded unevenly throughout the structure. Their circular rotation produces barely perceptible vibrations, causing subtle shifts and vibrations throughout the sculpture. These delicate movements and sounds create a tension between permanence and decay. An incorporeal, immortal organism, trapped in an eternal loop—perhaps something is emerging.