The Sami Center for Contemporary Art in Karasjok (Norway) will show a solo exhibition of Clemens Wilhelm’s work, presenting the video A HORSE WITH WHEELS.
In A HORSE WITH WHEELS (2017, HD, 29 min.), Clemens Wilhelm explores what might be the oldest piece of art we know. The object The Swimming Reindeer was made during the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago, and was carved from a mammoth’s tusk. Researchers call it a “useless tool” – a tool just for the mind.
Wilhelm sets out on the trail of this extraordinary sculpture, from where it was discovered in a cave in France to northern Norway, where large herds of reindeer still live today. In an essayistic manner, he tries to get closer to our ancestors who carved this work of art. Were they really so different from us? Has humanity progressed since then? The Swimming Reindeer was made in a period of global warming at the end of the Ice Age, prompting the question: was this existential human crisis a catalyst for the emergence of art? And what are the parallels with today?