160 Faces by Lundgren+Lindqvist — BP&O
Text by Richard Baird
160 Faces is a new publication by Swedish artist Daniel Götesson, operating under the name Ekta, designed by Lundgren + Lindqvist and distributed under the studio's publishing branches. The book brings together 160 drawings by the artist from 2019 and does not sequence them in logical pairs and with a curated rhythm, but rather using an algorithm developed by the studio. With modern printing technologies, every book becomes a unique experience of unexpected results. The viewer is thus involved in the formulation of the meaning between algorithmically paired human faces and outside the artist's hands. This overlapping of machine-generated results, a very human image and an artistic expression, is continued in the typesetting of front pages and colophon. Here Lundgren + Lindqvist designed a basic framework for the artist to write all of the required text with the same colored pencil he had used when creating the drawings.
“In the lines of these broken circles a playground unfolds in which the artist allowed himself to work freely and without a clear goal. Suddenly a curved line turns into a mouth and an elongated circle turns into a scary eye. A random spot left when the crayon frantically moves across the paper becomes a newly shed tear that rests near a cheekbone. With the passion of a starving pigeon feeding on a loaf of bread, Ekta drew one drawing at a time before tearing them in half and puzzling them back together in new, unexpected combinations. Apparently there is solace in both destruction and restoration. Dark, surprised, angry, giggling and afraid – 160 Faces look back at the artist from the floor of his studio. Does each of the collaged drawings represent an individual character or is the series an attempt to show the full register of emotions that a human face can convey? Upon closer inspection, the artist's motifs seem to have originated in an urge to push his visual vocabulary to its absolute limits, more than in exploring a range of facial expressions. "
By halving and then pairing two separate faces and binding them to a book, the collected works become an exquisite corpse of nuanced facial expressions. The artist expands the potential range of forms of expression far beyond his own ability to recognize and reproduce them by hand. It's an incredibly laborious job. The human face reproduced in graphic form, a fixed expression, is a surface to be interpreted.
The work is not only characterized by its artistic expression, but also by the way technology develops meaning and further engages the viewer through the unique sequencing of artworks. Serendipity played a vital role in creating the book, just as it did with the artworks. In a way, the variations of the book express the potential for artistic outcomes that are seldom pre-defined. The book will be an extension and further manifestation of the art project. In this way, each book is a part of a larger picture. This is augmented by a series of 16 limited edition books in which a blank page was randomly inserted into the sequence and an original artist sketch that eventually completes it. Further work by Lundgren + Lindqvist on BP & O.
Design: Lundgren + Lindqvist. Opinion: Richard Baird. Fonts: TBC
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