GIVEN - Reuterswärd Fahlström Duchamp (Cat. Sprengel Museum Hanover)

Öyvind Fahlström and Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd—his work is prominently represented in the collection of the Sprengel Museum Hannover through a generous donation by the artist—belonged to a circle within the Swedish art scene of the 1950s and 60s that was united in its veneration of Marcel Duchamp and an enthusiasm for his work, yet also in its fierce rejection of Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition, and especially the book GEGEBEN SIND, brings together the works of these three very different artists, revealing numerous connecting lines between their works, and gradually, in their concepts and games, in their wordplay and irony, one realizes what these artists have in common. Among Reuterswärd's best-known works is the sculpture "Non Violence," the revolver with the knotted barrel placed in front of the New York headquarters of the UN, which has become a symbol, as it were, of the that institution's seemingly almost impossible task of preserving peace. The sculpture, which has been installed at sixteen other locations around the world, was Carl Frederik Reuterswärd's response to the assassination of John Lennon.