Lasse Antonsen
Biography
Lasse Antonsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1947. He has, since 1978, lived in the US, in New York, Boston, Providence, Rhode Island, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. He studied art in Copenhagen in 1963-64 at the Experimental Art School with Poul Gernes and Per Kirkeby, and art and creative writing in 1964-65 at Holbæk Kunsthøjskole with the poet Inger Christensen. He studied art history at Copenhagen University in the mid and late 1970s, and after moving to the US, continued his studies at the Harvard University Extension Program and Tufts University. He received an MA in art history from Tufts University in 1986. Antonsen has worked as a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and as curator of the Danforth Museum of Art. He was director of the University Art Gallery at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for twenty-five years. He has curated and organized more than two hundred exhibitions, presenting the work of artists such as Paula Modersohn-Becker, Kathe Kollwitz, Georg Baselitz, Ilya Kabakov, Nancy Spero, Frank Stella, Paula Rego and Mark Dion. As an art historian he has taught graduate courses at Rhode Island School of Design, and currently teaches at Massachusetts College of Art. As an artist he has created installations at the Artists Foundation in Boston, at 150 Chestnut Street Installation Space in Providence, Rhode Island, at the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, and is currently featured at the Museum of Natural History in Providence. He has had many one-person exhibitions, most recently at the Colo Colo Gallery in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 2012, his work was included in exhibitions in Brooklyn, New York, at Proteus Gowanus, and in Jersey City, New Jersey, at Curious Matter.
Exhibits:
Dedee Shattuck Gallery | June 1 - June 30, 2013 | Lasse Antonsen, Nocturama
Dedee Shattuck Gallery | November 29 - December 23, 2012 | Small Works, 2012
Dedee Shattuck Gallery | June 5 - July 3, 2011 | Inaugural Show, 2011
Artist Statement
"I work with found objects. Most of the objects can be categorized as historical, and often they are archeological, or from within the realm of natural history. I am attracted to objects that have a specific history, and to the impossibility of ever accessing much of that history. I use objects that invite you in, yet exclude you. As an artist, my approach is to bring two objects together, or to present a selection of similar objects. Each of the objects have unspoken narratives and realms of emotions. Somehow these realms of texts, of storytelling, do not open up, and do not become accessible, until juxtaposed. I long to assert the mystery of these objects. I want to present their hidden realities, to reveal them, but at the same time I want to give them an opportunity to entice, to evoke, to perform."
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