Femtensesse proudly presents a dialogue between the works of French artist Clémence de La Tour du Pin and Norwegian artist Kaare Ruud at Liste Art Fair Basel 2024.

Clémence de La Tour du Pin’s wall-based assemblages are made using armatures and fabric sourced from vintage umbrellas collected in her hometown of Roanne, France. Stripped of their original functionality and enhanced with multiple layers of paint, waxed oil, and pigments, the elongated formats of her textured compositions stretch out as dusky horizons.

Kaare Ruud’s sculptures bring to mind Scandinavian log cabins, though in his works pencils are used to form walls, and each meticulously stacked pencil bears the marks of the nervous habit of being chewed. Pushing boundaries through materials, Ruud’s uncanny habitats, with walls of chewed “logs” and corners of sharp graphite, appear abandoned in an oddly familiar way.

With a profound sensitivity to materiality, the works of La Tour du Pin and Ruud, intricately supported by everyday objects, evoke both strangeness and familiarity, inviting contemplation on the interplay between exteriority and interiority, memory and decay, the present and the past.

Clémence de La Tour du Pin (b.1986, Roanne) lives and works between Paris and Amsterdam. She studied at the School of Art, Architecture & Design in London and the Van der Kelen-Logelain Institute in Brussels, and she is a former participant of De Ateliers, Amsterdam. Recent solo- and duo exhibitions include T-Rex, Derosia, New York (2024); Parallel Manipulation, with Ingrid B. Olson, Wschód, Warsaw (2023): Topological-Ease, Tonus, Paris (2023); In shade, Smart Objects, Los Angeles (2021); and Windings, Femtensesse, Oslo (2021). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Sentiment, Zurich (2024); Femtensesse, Oslo (2024); Office Baroque, Antwerp, Brussels (2024); Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2024); Hagiwara Projects, Tokyo (2024); Capc – Musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux (2023); Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris (2023); ADZ Gallery, Lisbon (2023); Centre d’Art Contemporain La Synagogue Delme, Delme (2019); and Musée d’Art Moderne de La Ville de Paris, Paris (2015). Her work is included in the collection of the Capc – Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux and is part of the museum’s current group exhibition Amour Systémique, on view until January 2025. 2025 will see her second solo exhibition at Femtensesse, Oslo. 

Kaare Ruud (b. 1993, Gausdal) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. He graduated with an MFA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2020. Recent solo exhibitions include This page is blank on purpose, Stormen kunst/dájdda, Bodø (2023); hvit kirke grav kaffe duk, Samlingen, Nesodden (2023); Retningen høner sparker, Heerz Tooya, Veliko Tarnovo (2022); Simpathy: Landlyst, Sol Nexø, Bornholm (2022); Out of love, Hulias, Oslo (2022); Album og Volum, The Association of Norwegian Sculptors, Oslo (2021); Days, weeks, years (ode till den apatiska), Galleri Toll (2021), Stockholm; and Feistmuggjen, The Association of Norwegian Sculptors, Oslo (2020). His work has been featured in group and duo exhibitions at Femtensesse, Oslo (2024); Melk, Oslo (2023); CANTINA, Aarhus (2023); and STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo (2021). In 2024, Ruud will have a solo exhibition at Hulias Cantina, Civita d’Antino, and in 2025, he will have solo exhibitions at Stain Projects, Mallorca; Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen; and Femtensesse, Oslo. 

The presentation is generously supported by OCA and The Mondriaan Fund