<em>Gardar Eide Einarsson</em>, installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, June 10–22, 2008. Photo: Bruce Burton.
Gardar Eide Einarsson, installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, June 10–22, 2008. Photo: Bruce Burton.

Gardar Eide Einarsson

Borrowing imagery from outlaw subcultures, particularly the criminal underground and American left-wing militias, and often working with a black-and-white palette, Norwegian artist Gardar Eine Einarsson works to locate positions of paranoia, rebellion, and the administration of justice. His installations often combine paintings leaned against walls as “props,” flags imprinted with explicit messages, emblems appropriated from graffiti, skateboarding graphics, and punk music posters that he has painted directly onto gallery walls, videos, photography, and furniture displayed as sculpture. At the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Einarsson opts for a minimal aesthetic, constraining The Front Room by creating a chain-link fence using spray paint and a single, re-used stencil. In this site-specific installation, Einarsson points to the graphic symbols of oppression and violence, while remaining entirely abstract in a grid of diagonal lines.

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