Dag Erik Elgin: Mirror Falling from the Wall

Original or not

In his "Originals" series, Dag Erik Elgin has dedicated himself to his own subjective, yet not unusual, canon of modern painting since 1986. In the resulting works, he repeats the selected works, all of which originate from modernism or classical modernism, without aiming for maximum authenticity in the copying manner of an art forger. The resulting canvases represent a borderline case between complete appropriation and learning replica; in them, Dag Erik Elgin as a painter recreates the processes of creation of the actual originals as if in a re-enactment and at the same time generates from them an intellectual reflection on the delicate concepts of original and forgery, of handmade and hand-copied painting. His "originals" are of the highest aesthetic appeal and yet - as forgeries - would not stand up to a critical autopsy on the art market, as their material and style in no way conceal their creation in the present. And yet it is the painting itself, the insistence on a handmade execution in oil on canvas, that makes the "original" the original - and this in times of perfected digital appropriation possibilities that would far surpass any manual transfer of a painted model. (Uwe Fleckner)