© FOS solo exhibition, Chang Sun

The first solo exhibition of FOS (a.k.a. Thomas Poulsen), a Danish artist and furniture designer, at SCAD Museum of Art unveils the blurring boundary between art and design through contemporary cross-disciplinary practices, including sculptures, installations, and design projects. Titled with “Palimpsest – Hands Worn Smooth by Coins,” this exhibition is curated to decode the artist’s material language and design aesthetics in a playful and interactive way. 

The exhibition focused on around twenty works in the corridor-shaped space. Surprisingly, the spatial display does not overwhelm the audience thanks to the artist’s curatorial recommendation, where he installed two curtains on each side of the wall. They separate the entire corridor space into three segments and manipulate the visiting path. Each curtain features with a rectangular hole in the middle, as if a window is opened to the audience. More interestingly, it provides visitors with a special angle to appreciate the artworks, allowing the audience to observe them directly, or frame the work through the hole as a painting. 

In addition to this fresh spatial layout, visitors can experience the exhibition in the artist’s vision through the predesigned visiting path. Starting from representational and functional pieces, the exhibited works gradually move into abstract and experimental installations and sculptures. This can be exemplified through the wide range of the materials he used, from the heavy metals, smooth brass, and rough concrete, to transparent glassware, colourful pigment, and even the sea salt. It is also worth to highlight the shadowing and interactive effect between the object and light source. For example, the furniture design Street Lamp 260 serves as an light source that brightens the acrylic plaster wall sculpture Ia”yk yE”s (and silica stats), giving a shadow layer to present the works vividly. This multi-layer effect is resonant to the exhibition title “Palimpsest.” In fact, Thomas’ obsession with palimpsest can be traced back to an interview in RIKA MAGAZINE several years ago, where he confessed his fascination on the layered and contradictory nature of materials. He found out that the materiality is similar to the social structure that defined by analogies of social behavior. In my opinion, it is the way he mixes different materials into one piece of sculptures that expresses his understanding of social structure. 

However, we have to point out the conspicuous Northern European style in FOS’ design practices where he repeatedly used the gray and white tones to match golden-yellow brass. The flat and smooth texture is also a hallmark of Scandinavian minimalism style. Indeed, according to Thomas, he is dedicated to the cross-disciplinary practices between art and design, and he deems himself as both an artist and a designer. This dual-identity enables him to bring more flexibility into art works and design projects. In this sense, FOS’ style has a strong character and avoids mediocrity.  

All in all, despite symbolic design elements, I strongly appreciate nuances he brings to the art world. It is his experiments on sophisticated materiality that engage multiple angles and perspectives to the world, which constructs associations with the audience.