Elmgreen & Dragset

The Outsiders, 2020

The duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are known internationally for their sculptures and large-scale interventions that address identity, social histories, institutional critique, and other subjects. The Outsiders (2020), which was created during the 25th anniversary year of the artists’ collaboration, engages with these artistic concerns through a highly narrative format. Incorporating a vintage Mercedes Benz estate car from 1982 and two hyper-realistic wax figurative sculptures, the piece invites viewers to gaze through the vehicle’s windows at a pair of sleeping art handlers who have driven from Moscow to Basel. Other items in the car—packed artworks, drink and snack wrappers, a lanyard with a pass to Art Basel, and Russian magazines—offer hints about the young men’s origins and journey to the art fair. The work was previously exhibited as part of the artists’ 2020 solo show at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland.

"The role of the automobile is shaping landscapes, social relations, gender roles, everyday routines and urban life. Traffic largely dictates the design of space—both urban and rural—thus structures and defines our experience of, and negotiations through, everyday life."

Karen Lumsden, Sociologist

"More than most other design objects, cars can reveal a lot about the power structures in our society."

Elmgreen & Dragset

Short Cut_Milan2 (MC Donald's view).jpg — Elmgreen & Dragset, *Short Cut*, 2003, Courtesy: Galleria Massimo De Carlo; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Collection. Photo by: Jens Ziehen.

Cars have figured in Elmgreen & Dragset’s practice for over 15 years, beginning with the work Short Cut at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan in 2004. Since then, many of the artists’ projects, including Forgotten Baby (2005), Disgrace (2006), and The One and the Many (2010), have examined social and political meanings associated with cars. As the artists put it in an essay titled On Parking, “More than most other design objects, cars can reveal a lot about the power structures in our society.”

TheOne&TheMany_1.jpg — Elmgreen & Dragset, *The One and* *The Many,* 2010, Courtesy: the artists; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Photo by: Tot en met ontwerpen.

"We have never perceived ourselves as 'car freaks.' We currently lease a pick-up truck that we share with our studio and another Berlin artist… That being said, Michael knows everything about cars. Models, engines, cylinders, horsepower, acceleration… He’s had an obsession with cars since childhood."

Elmgreen & Dragset

These works function as socially minded experiments of sorts, beckoning viewers into spaces that are not their own. Elmgreen & Dragset wrote in the same essay, “As drivers and passengers, we often have a feeling of being inside and outside at the same time, being at once protected and exposed. In this sculpture, which we have entitled The Outsiders, we let this ambivalence become a key part of the experience of it. When we look at people in their cars, we often feel embarrassed. A feeling we emphasize here, by the exposure and fragility of the intimate moment captured between the men in the back of the car.”

"When we look at people in their cars, we often feel embarrassed. A feeling we emphasize here, by the exposure and fragility of the intimate moment captured between the men in the back of the car."

Elmgreen & Dragset

With The Outsiders on view at Art Basel, the artists have situated a critique of art world hierarchies and conventions in the middle of one of the sector’s most important events of the year. Elmgreen & Dragset are deeply interested in subverting viewers’ expectations in art spaces and challenging them to think about museums, galleries, and, in this case, art fairs in new ways. “The spatial transformation can trigger a moment of surprise, an experience of alienation by the viewer, which has the potential to sharpen the viewer’s perception,” they wrote in On Parking.

"The spatial transformation can trigger a moment of surprise, an experience of alienation by the viewer, which has the potential to sharpen the viewer’s perception."

Elmgreen & Dragset

Elmgreen & Dragset will open their first solo exhibition with Pace Gallery in New York in November 2021. In 2022, the artists will present a multi-venue solo exhibition at the Fondazione Prada in Milan.

To inquire about this work or other works by Elmgreen & Dragset, please email us at inquiries@pacegallery.com.

Elmgreen & Dragset

Elmgreen & Dragset pursue questions of identity and belonging and investigate social, cultural, and political structures in their artistic practice. They are interested in the discourse that can arise if objects are radically re-contextualized and if normal modes for the representation of art are altered.

Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are based in Berlin and have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. They have held numerous solo exhibitions at art institutions worldwide, including EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2020); The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2019-20); The Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018–19); Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (2016); UCCA, Beijing (2016); PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2014); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2013–14); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2011); ZKM Museum of Modern Art, Karlsruhe (2010); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (2009); Serpentine Gallery, London (2006); Tate Modern, London (2004); and Kunsthalle Zürich (2001).

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Past

Art Basel

Sep 20 – Sep 26, 2021

Sep 20 – Sep 26, 2021

Past, Elmgreen & Dragset, Art Basel Unlimited, Sep 20, 2021