UMMA Projects: Simon Dybbroe Moller December 1, 2010

Things are not always as they seem in the work of Simon Dybbroe Moller. Indeed, the Danish artist's works can at times appear to have been teleported from a slightly askew, alternate version of the past. Seemingly familiar forms often appear in unexpected configurations and objects we think we recognize turn out to be something else entirely. An abstract wall painting emerges from beneath a layer of peeling plaster. A group of minimalist sculptures turn out to be the pieces of an enlarged Soma cube. This uncertainty is central to the experience of Dybbroe Moller's work, where an initial misrecognition leads to a moment of aesthetic discovery. Dybbroe Moller's penchant for puzzles and paradoxes reflects his interest in modernism's theoretical aspirations as well as its practical failings. Similarly, his frequent adoption of "outmoded" media both provides him with a diverse artistic palette and a means of questioning the past century's faith in progress through technology and the avant-garde promise of continual artistic development. For Dybbroe Moller's first solo exhibition in a North American museum, UMMA will present a new body of work that continues his ongoing engagement with and critique of the modernist paradigm of transparency.