For Immediate Release Exhibition dates: January 18 – March 1, 2008 Opening reception: January 17 from 6-8pm Kristoffer Akselbo "Made Ready Made" Brown is pleased to present Made Ready Made, an exhibition of new and recent sculpture by the Danish artist Kristoffer Akselbo. For this exhibition, Akselbo has taken everyday objects, transforming them into machinations of surprise and humour. The title of the show reflects the importance of Marcel Duchamp’s use of ready made objects in the artist’s practice. Akselbo furthers the discourse on this idea by taking a familiar image or story and using a ready-made object and re-working it. In Mona Lisa Toaster, a household aluminium toaster creates a burned image of The Mona Lisa by Da Vinci. Enigmatic and humourous, the work mimics the recent eBay sale of the Virgin Mary sandwich as well as the iconic image itself. The use of electricity as a medium in Akselbo’s work also follows the historical trajectory of kinetic sculpture like Jean Tinguely and more recently Jeppe Hein. In Bad, a spinning Michael Jackson album blurs the well-known image and text, thereby abstracting the content. The work’s electrical component elevates the piece beyond the ready-made or found object. Akselbo is also interested in combining contmporary and classical art historical references with broader public appeal. The artist articulates ideas of pop culture and merges these foundations with mechanised sculpture. In Double Sundown, a sunset poster crumples itself down and then fans out again. Influenced by the wonder of Olafur Eliasson’s installations, Akselbo attempts to recreate sensation into the natural occurance with an alternative sense of surrprise. In Factory Sounds, an englarged Campbell’s soup can rolls back and forth across the gallery floor, echoing the influence of Andy Warhol on contemporary culture. Akselbo was born in 1974 in Copenhagen and lives and works in Copenhagen. He received his degree in 2006 from The Royal Danish Art Academy in Denmark. He has had previous exhibitions at Kirkhoff in Copenhage; Kronborg Castle, Kronborg, Denmark, and “Add x to n” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark. This is his first solo exhibition in London and his first with Brown.