EXHIBITION
MAI HOFSTAD GUNNES

BABY SNAKES HATCHING. RUINS. RUINS.

Curated by Erlend Hammer

The surface seems to be made of a soft leathery material. In 1923 Aby Warburg gives a lecture on the Serpent Ritual. The different units stick together. As the baby snake uses its tooth to slice open the membrane, the East Wing of the Naturkunde Museum in Berlin is bombed into ruins. The hatching process takes up to two days from it starts until the snake has managed to leave the demolished edifice behind. The structure then deflates like a punctuated ball, and is left to decompose. In 1979 Frank Zappa’s single Baby Snakes is released.

For the exhibition Baby Snakes Hatching. Ruins. Ruins. Mai Hofstad Gunnes presents new works including a 16mm film, collages and a series of unique silkscreen prints. The project draws on references from psychoanalysis, zoology, Indian animal mythology and architecture, becoming a labyrinthian semiotics in which architecture and the life cycle of snakes connect through magical assimilation. An artist book is launched during the exhibition. The book, produced by UKS and published by Torpedo Press, contains essays by Erlend Hammer and Emily Verla Bovino.

Downloads:
Mai_Hofstad_Gunnes_2012_Press.zip (0.5mb)
Mai_Hofstad_Gunnes_2012_Documentation.zip (1.7mb)