The exhibitions of the Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset are always excellent, always a point of humor to make reflect... And with their new exhibition This Is How We Bite Our Tongue at Whitechapel Gallery, it's always witty and poignant.

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Powerless Structures, small version, bronze for Miami Beach 2014

WHO

Based in Berlin, Michael Elmgreen (born in 1961 in Copenhagen) and Ingar Dragset (born in 1969 in Trondheim, Norway) worked together since 1995. And in 2012, they made their mark in public art with Powerless Structures, a boy on a rocking horse on Trafalgar Square (London), an act of pacifism (never forget your child's soul) despite the bellicose military statues of the square.

Powerless Structures (Source - Wiki)

"People ask, Why do you use humour in your works ? It's pure angr management. It's better to scream with laughter than just scream" - Elmgreen & Dragset

They met in 1994 in a nightclub in Copenhaguen, Elmgreen was an industrial designer and Dragset was in an indie band called Asia Today. They have worked as a duo since 1995. In 2006, they presented The Welfare Show at the Serpentine Gallery (London) about the welfare system in western society with a series of boring room in order to show the bureaucratic aspect of the public sector.

Like this twelve guards in an empty museum room :

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Reg(u)arding the Guards, installation view from the exhibition The Welfare Show.

Or my favorite Mordern Moses about a wax baby lying in front of ATM Cash machine :

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Mordern Moses, installation view from the exhibition The Welfare Show.

"They make us aware of the configurations and constraints that suround us all" - Laura Smith, curator.

Now the duo is based permanently in Berlin after the Brexit. Their future projects will be :

in October, on the Place Vendome (Paris), the installation of 100 bronze starfish for the FIAC Art Faire,
and next year, in Miami, the installation of Bent Pool.

Invisible, 2017, sculpture for Perrotin Gallery

WHAT

With this exbibition This Is How We Bite Our Tongue (London, 27 September 2018 – 13 January 2019), this is a major survey of their works with 26 pieces spanning more than 20 years of practice and 6 new works. It's a great way to discover their universe.