Per-Oskar Leu
On June 3rd 1924 the Czech author Franz Kafka died, having suffered from tuberculosis for nearly seven years. Toward the end of his life the worsening condition of his disease made it impossible for Kafka to speak, leaving handwritten messages as his only available means of communication.
Like the Zürau aphorisms, written in 1917 while Kafka underwent treatment at a sanatorium in Bohemia, the fragments of conversation were rendered onto small slips of paper. When the text "Maybe it's easier to choke over less" first appeared in print together with close to a hundred other remnants of long forgotten dialogues, they made up an unexpected yet poetic addition to Kafka's oeuvre.
While it can seem like a cruel twist of irony that an author who remained virtually unknown in his lifetime was to have virtually every sentence he wrote published posthumously, the ambiguous nature of these "final words" nevertheless provide an appropriate conclusion to Franz Kafka's literary production.
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Per-Oskar Leu
Born, 1980, in Oslo, NorwayLives and works in Oslo, NorwayArtistic expression: Sculpture, photography and installation
Artist statementPer-Oskar Leu (b. 1980) distills layers of information into objects of iconic simplicity through a process of condensation and an associative play of thought.
For his graduation project Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (2006), Leu hired inmates in a Norwegian prison to build a "Trojan Horse" in the shape of a hermetically sealed garbage container. By capturing a piece of confined space and transporting it out of the correctional institution, the artist alluded to the idea of escape while examining the prison economy and issues of forced labour.
Often taking film and literature as his point of departure, Leu is utilizing the inherent mystical qualities of original artifacts. Collector's items like an autographed postcard, a rare first edition book or a real human skull are used to address questions of authenticity while creating poetic and witty social-political commentary.
The outsourcing of work is an integral part of Leu's art practice, which highlights modes of production by exposing the financial and logistical structures behind the pieces.
Per-Oskar Leu was educated at The National Academy of Fine Art in Oslo, Glasgow School of Art and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. Lives and works in Oslo/Frankfurt.
