PUTPUT. Fitting #2, 2013; inkjet print; dimensions variable; edition 1/5. Courtesy the artist

The objects they create range from Fitting (2013), a series of chairs made from combined materials and objects (such as a chair with a house plant as a leg), to a series titled Objective Ambition (2012), which captures the shadowy ambitions and projections of unaltered ready-made objects. Their first book, self-published in an edition of 250, is titled Tribute to the Salami (2012).

PUTPUT. Tribute to the Salami, 2012; offset print; sixteen pages; edition of 250. Courtesy the artist

The duo identifies its work as “operating at the intersection where conceptual photography, styling, art, and design meet.” These juxtapositions, or aptly described meetings, raise interesting queries that their work seems to purposefully evade yet seems on the verge of answering: what is more important, the object(s) or the depiction of those object(s), i.e., the language itself or the communication of that language? Additionally, are the two effectively separable? These questions exemplify the key tensions in PUTPUT’s body of work. Furthermore, the duo’s work confounds and complicates both the ideas and expectations of collectors and an art market poised to commodify any object or medium.

PUTPUT. Popsicles #2, 2012; inkjet print; 15 x 21 cm; edition 1/5. Courtesy the artist

In thinking about PUTPUT’s work, a number of art historical references emerge, but none more so than a kinship with Claes Oldenburg. In 1961 the Swedish-born and American-raised Oldenburg began working at what he called The Store. Now famous for monumental public sculptures, Oldenburg first made and sold small objects made from resin, paint, and papier-mâché—inedible food, unwearable clothing, and other commonplace yet unusable commodities at The Store. PUTPUT seems to pick up, in part, where Oldenburg left off with The Store by creating what could be objects in—and photographic advertisements for—his operation. The works that exemplify this overlap most clearly are Oldenburg’s sculpture Soft Fur Good Humors (1963) and PUTPUT’s photographic series Popsicles (2012). Both works depict popsicles re-created with common objects and materials—leopard-print fabric for one and brightly colored sponges for the other. While both Oldenburg’s and PUTPUT’s work specifically deals with a kind of market commodity evasion and critique, it is PUTPUT’s penchant for humor coupled with critique that reminds one most of Oldenburg.

PUTPUT. Inflorescence #6, 2012; inkjet print; 60 x 76 cm; edition 1/3. Courtesy the artist

This Northern European duo seems to be constantly rethinking not only its approach but also its surroundings. Two series that particularly exemplify its interest in remaking its surroundings are Inflorescence (2012) and A New Necessity (2012). In Inflorescence (2012) indoor plants are collaged with functional household objects—for example, a lavender loofah and two rainbow dusters—that stand in for the plants’ flowers. A New Necessity (2012) alters the functionality, or non-functionality, of foods, appliances, and tools: a cucumber becomes a candle, and the water from a hand-held-shower wand is replaced with strings of robin’s-egg-blue yarn. But, in the end, it is the photographs of these transformations that become the artworks. This flattening underscores the importance of everything else in the photograph—the backdrops, the posture of the hands that hold those objects, the lights and shadows—adding a necessary texture to these works.

PUTPUT. A New Necessity #5, 2012; inkjet print; dimensions variable; edition 1/10. Courtesy the artist

In Objective Ambition (2012), PUTPUT’s work takes on a markedly different and profoundly human quality. The work is a series of sculptures. Each sculpture is one object standing on a bright white sheet of paper casting—or more appropriately, projecting—a shadow that resembles yet deviates from the object’s actual shadow. For example, in Objective Ambition #1 a bulbous rounded cactus casts a shadow of the common vertical pitchfork-shaped cactus, as though it yearns for a shape unlike its own. The duo notes this of Objective Ambition: “In pure disregard of functionality or decorative aspects we often associate objects with certain feelings, memories, situations, occasions, or people. The Objective Ambition installation examines the symbolic projected feelings of objects; can objects have ambitions, dreams, and opinions?” Ostensibly, PUTPUT has created something of a Jungian shadow-side for inanimate objects, exploring the potentially shadowy depth of character in these things. It is this body of work that brings PUTPUT’s goals full circle, as the duo struggles time and again with the intricate and at times nefarious interplay of photography, sculpture, design, and anthropomorphism, and does so all with a decidedly and consistent Pop art aesthetic.

Objective Ambition #1, 2012; sculpture; dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.

PUTPUT is an interdisciplinary Swiss/Danish artist duo established in 2011 that is currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Its projects are based in contemporary art photography, sculpture, and limited-edition publications. Its work has been shown in London, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Milan, and Denmark. The group has also been featured in a series of printed and online magazines and blogs including AINT-BAD Magazine, Trendhunter, Beautiful/Decay, Present & Correction, and Viewpoint. 

Silas Inoue, Midnight funeral at the holy sea between River Styx and Sanzu No Kawa, watercolor on paper, 110x85cm

With some chicken legs weighted and tied to strings, my friend and I set out to catch some blue crabs in an intertidal creek near the city of Charleston. Not having caught a crab since I was kid, it was intuition and internet research that guided us, and overall much easier than anticipated. Catching a few males with big claws at first got us excited and knowing what to look for. We threw back all the little ones or inspected them on the dock and let them run backwards in attack mode, flopping back into the water. Looking out on the surface of a creek, you know that there is biomass down there, and you know what you can expect to find, but to know exactly all of what is below you is not possible. When floating in a boat, you can drag a line behind you and feel the range of subtle vibrations and hard jerks across the floor and imagine it like you are a sonar-mapping machine. Maybe that’s an oyster shell, but maybe that’s a bite. The tides bring in new animals and wash them out again. Where there once were crabs there might be none anymore. The unknown drives us forward. We get a dozen crabs for dinner.

Silas Inoue, Inner Tourism, watercolor on paper, 75x100cm

The shape of an iceberg below the surface of the water is unknown but knowable. The conscious mind knows only a fraction of itself. Silas populates an iceberg with structures as though it is a floating island, a destination. The unreal view of the iceberg with its great mass below has been visually parodied even before explorer Ralph A. Clevenger put together his famous photomontage from images taken in the Arctic and Antarctic, so visually captivating it might seem to be real. The phrase “tip of the iceberg” suggests that there is much more to know—and it may be surprising what is discovered. Tourism, applied to the surface of the drowned ice, is a luxury that spreads across the globe like an invasive species.  Microbes are frozen in the ice. The economy must always grow and expand. Buildings and cities are temporary, artifacts on a longer timeline. Ancient fertile crescent cities came to prosper with the control of nature. They controlled their water as a means to creating wealth. Stabilizing nature makes us safe from it and lets us prosper. This man/nature division is a human survival technique.

Silas Inoue, Silence, watercolor on paper, 75x100cm

A spiraling water vortex seen from the surface, its black-hole center suggests a brooding, turbulent ocean. The spiral reminds me of the shape of our galaxy, also the shit that we flush down the toilet, and the known and tentatively proven dark matter. Eddies and swirling winds are forces that can move icebergs.

Silas Inoue, Let's Dance, 13 Karate trophies cut up and mounted on metal ball

Ideas and forms are rewoven on the artist’s trajectory in an intuitive way. A disco ball is a covered earth-like thing, like the iceberg. The ball is plated with metal parts looking like gridded city blocks. My perceptions of global climate change, apocalyptic fear and yearning, and existential considerations frame the images necessarily, my mental state, and maybe part of yours too. Some generalizations about the end of the world: the apocalypse will benefit the weakest in society. It would be a great equalizer. Artists like the apocalypse. Titans of industry want a static world. The apocalypse means a great shredding of current systems. Oppression and wealth, these were illusions that became social reality. True reality is the dynamism of nature left after a catastrophic event, the spur of evolution. The apocalypse is a bridge to the new world, a shift that allows the thinker to imagine a better world.

Waves of change are always on the horizon. A sandy island appears as solid land though it is likely to overwash and shift with the next big storm. Waves of change have essentially formed our world, but man is apt to see consistency and wants to stabilize our systems of thought. Logic is unyielding. Damage happens when our system fails, a levee break, new inlets form. Static vision is pervasive, though change is constant, quoted again and again. Those who don’t believe in the supernatural or heaven are free to use fresh theory when considering the end-times. We are in the process of covering the finite world. We have not yet finished up all our resources.

Silas Inoue, City of Phosphenes, pencil on paper

Silas’s recent solo exhibition, Marathon of the Spiritual Ape at MOHS Copenhagen, was bound by “the general need of humanity to conquer, compete and exceed oneself” as it examined forms such as trophies using a variety of media. Examining a wide range of cultural content, the art is neither prescriptive nor instructive. He challenges concepts of status and power, and their illusory nature, which guide valuation of a life lived. Silas’s body of work is allowed to be disparate and process-oriented, suggesting a repetitious and obsessive approach in its complexity and intricacy of detail, but also filled with humor, wit, and sarcasm. Often patterning space rather than rendering objects, the linear and graphic work shows a direct connection to his life as a muralist and printmaker. Silas is a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, MA in Visual Communication.