feed the monument silver
call the spill a future
– Drenched Co.
Kino. At the opening, I overheard someone speak of old films, grease on the lens and seduction beginning with a smear. Silver arrives first, blue-black and already implicated. Concrete enters the plate and returns wounded, full of noise. Christian Houge lets chemistry interfere until looking becomes a small betrayal.
Spomenik. The word simply means monument. These structures were raised across Yugoslavia over battles and acts of anti-fascist resistance, giving concrete to a shared life still to come.
Sutjeska. The forms now invite Star Wars, the orderly base after everybody has fled, except all the running has passed into the image, where silver buckles and bright wounds open across the dark. Beauty becomes another forgetting as chemical damage turns a particular history into something easier to worship. The lost country and the photograph make the monument strange twice.
Partizan. On another wall, Ivan Fumić returned in a projected loop. I sat before him and stared. After a while, his face and the monument began exchanging their silence.
Budućnost. Go further back and the monument has yet to exist. Concrete has not learnt what it must remember. People are still running while someone begins deciding what shape their survival will take.
See https://www.artforward.gallery/exhibitions
See also https://christianhouge.no/
See also http://www.soaked.space/2026/10/exhibition-review-christian-houge.html
Caption: Image above: Installation view, Christian Houge, Echoes of Utopia, Art Forward Gallery, London, 2026.
Image courtesy of the artist and Art Forward Gallery.
We take great care to respect the integrity of every image. The views expressed here are ours alone and do not represent those of the artist or gallery.
@christianhouge_artist @artforwardgallery
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