Kont 2011

Kont 2011
Peetri harbour, Tallinn
Streetart on containers

It has been a year since the wonderful streetart project Kont in Tallinn, where international artists were invited to paint on containers. This approach was chosen after too much bureaucracy and obstacles against painting on walls. But this also means that Tallinn has a collection of mobile streetart pieces. At the moment they are staying in Peetri harbour, rather hidden away. But at any moment they could be moved to another place. I hope that will happen.









More about the Kont project here

Steilneset

Steilneset Memorial
Louise Bourgeois, Peter Zumthor and Liv Helene Willumsen
Vardø, Norway
Memorial for the victims of the witch processes in Vardø in the 17th century

The installation is a memorial to the victims of the intensive witch trials in this area in the 17th century. 91 persons were executed for witchcraft, after admitting under torture, or after being tested through horrible methods.

This place used to be an execution area, well placed behind the graveyard. The monument is still behind the present graveyard, and it still feels so disconnected from it. The victims were not allowed to be buried on sacred ground as they were accused of having rejected God.

 
The memorial consists of two parts: A glass cage, with a burning chair inside, surrounded by giant mirrors. A long hall, where there is a window, lamp and text for each victim. The two parts are connected by the closeness, but at the same they are time two quite different installations.



Bourgeois and Zumthor's glass cage is strangely alien at this spot. From the outside it seems like a cosy campfire inside, while the magnificient surrounding landscape is reflected in the glass. Inside it feels like being at the office of a dentist from the worst nightmare, with the quite uncomfortable chair and the giant mirrors. The landscape visible through the glass is more comforting. It is a disturbing spot, not like a quiet memorial for meditation, but rather a chamber of horrors.



On the other hand, the long hall fits in here, it belongs here. The carcass is comparable to the stockfish scaffolding that are so common in this area, and the canvas of the hull has connections to the sails of the fishing vessels. The windows and the lamps are all in different level, while the texts collected by Liv Helene Willumsen are at reading level. 



These contrasts between the two parts are fitting. The glass cage may symbolize the processes in general, executed all over the Christian world in those times, an alien tradition that was imposed on this place. The victims of this tradition were the local inhabitants. We can study the processes in general from historic litterature, but we can never understand the horror and fear of both the victims and all those fearing the hordes of demons and witches.

The accusations are very interesting to read, it is not only about what they are accused of and who accused them, but also how they were tricked into being a witch, who is their mentor demon, and through which medium they got their powers. You can sense how long the torture has been to reach this admittal, and how large a part of this must have been created by the inquisitors. It is obvious that some were forced to say a name of someone else, and probably it was easier then to name the outsiders and the harmless. Thus it is probably not a surprise that the list is dominated by women and minority people. The contents of the accusations also reveal that envy is put to the extreme, the accused are accused of being envious, but you can sense there is envy behind the accusations.

It is touching that each one of the victims are handled as a unique person in the memorial, they all were valuable human beings. They all have a shining light, a window both for looking in and for looking out, and their name and story.



The hall seems endless in the dim light, symbolizing that these are the victims from this place, but the victims are so many more in other places. This is just one piece of the large picture, and see how long this part is.

These processes and this way of looking at the world strike us as barbaric. But in those times this was their reality, this was their truth. Is the World improving, or is it just changing appearances? Do we have rituals and beliefs that the people of the 25th century will consider barbaric? Are there groups of people or individuals we exclude or consider demonic because of their ethnisity or beliefs? We see the burning chair and consider it horrible, but the surrounding mirrors do not only reflect the execution spot, they also reflect our own image. 



Link to the official page of the monument:
http://www.vegvesen.no/Turistveg/varanger/Utforte+anlegg/Steilneset

From Stavanger with Love

From Stavanger with Love
Guiseppe Gabellone,  Daniel Gustav Cramer, Michael Dean, Becky Beasley, Sara VanDerBeek, Marie Lund, Abäke, Nina Beier
24.8.-16.9.12
Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger
Photos of ephemeral sculptures

I have always been fascinated by the power of a photograph. Also when it comes to photographing art, or photo as art itself. Therefore I read the presentation of this exhibition with great interest. The topic is short-lived sculptures, or rather the photos of short-lived sculptures. A great effort is made to make sculptures, then they are photographed, then destroyed, and the only proof and memory of the sculptures are in the photos. It is all in the photo, if it disappears, the memory of the sculpture disappears.


Guiseppe Gabellone: Untitled

Found photos are printed on fabric, and hung on frames to be photographed. Unlike commercial banners with easily recognizable logos, these pictures show something we will never know what was. The wind creates movement and distort the pictures, and the only moment caught on the photo is when the fabric was hanging just like this. We will never know how it would look like if it was straight, we have to imagine it.


Daniel Gustav Cramer: First Snow IV

There are few things as ephemeral as the first snow. This column of snowballs have probably melted and had some rounds in the snow-water-evaporation-cloud-snow circuit since the photo was made. But the photo fixed that exact moment, that exact state of stable snow.


Michael Dean: Claires arms at night (working title)

Balloons are put in or coincidentally happened to be in a pattern seeming like a Chinese sign or a cryptic pictogram. Each and every balloon were probably moving immediately after the photo was taken, and they are probably all empty now.  The Chinese balloon sign stays on the photo, and you have plenty of time to figure out what it means.


Becky Beasley: Build, Night (showing 2 of 3 photos)

Seeming like an IKEA user guide of how to assemble a box, but these photos rather show the process of disassembling into the pieces it consisted of. The pieces seems to have been ripped off, never to be put together again.What it was been before it was disassembled, and whether they are the same or three different is up to the viewer to decide.


Sara VanDerBeek: Baltimore Dancers Nine / Ten

The legs of dancers become sculptures, that last as long as the dancers can keep the position. They will be able to recreate the pose almost, but not totally. The camera caught that exact moment. Thus in this context these are not only photos of legs, but of movement, or a frozen moment that will never happen again.


Marie Lund with Abäke: Turtles

Sculptures or items found at the flea market are photographed by the artist. The items are so worn down that they are unrecognizable. Or are they? Were they supposed to look like this? Or what did they originally look like? Nobody can tell anymore, what has been has been, this is now.


Nina Beier: The demonstrators (Balancing Potato)

A giant portrait of a potato is fixed to a conference table. A real potato on the table would almost not have been visible, and it would soon rot. This potato is getting more attention than the table it is on. And the original potato is probably transformed into dirt a long time ago.

The exhibition points to what is and what is not, what exists and what does not exist. The art value of the sculptures are transferred to the photos of the sculptures.

Indeterminate form

Indeterminate Form
Hedvig Sønstabø Thorkildsen, Idun Baltzersen, Jane Sverdrupsen, Hege Cathrine Thoresen
Trykk17, Stavanger
23.8.-2.9.12
The future of printing - selected works of students at the Art Academy in Bergen

Does the various printing techniques have a future, or do they belong in museums? Is printing relevant and challenging in contemporary art? This was what the curators Solveig Landa and Mona Orstad Hansen wanted to explore. To get an impression of what the future will be, they visited Bergen Art Academy, and selected works from the students.


Indeterminate Form at Trykk17


Hedvig Sønstabø Thorkildsen: svisj svisj

Print of a photo made on the subway in speed. A great result capturing and recreating this sense of speed. This is enchanced by her sound art work on the outside, emerging subway sounds on Nytorget square in Stavanger.


Idun Baltzersen: Lucretia, Ophelia (etter Millais, Rembrandt, Cranach)

Here classical motives are taken in use in a new way, women of different times and of different qualities are put together, all vulnerable, all strong.


Jane Sverdrupsen: Selfsame

Everyone is unique, slightly or very different from another person. Sometimes it is not so easy to spot that difference, also when it comes to other phenomenons, like the two cometing food chains Rema1000 and Rimi. The same items, the same prices, the same interior, almost the same graphic design. Jane Sverdrupsen went to the core of the chains, to their founders, and looked for differences in their appearances. The differences as you can see from this visualisation, are not large. The work is printed like a graphic design showcase.



Jane Sverdrupsen: Medisinsk litteratur anno 2008

Text from a liposuction advertisement is put into the font and appearance of medieval times. At first glance it seems like one of those amusing texts describing an anachronistic, horrible or exotic procedure. Maybe the next generations will look at our times the same way. This work is depending in the printing technique to appear in this old style. This is a brilliant way of using this printing technique to achieve an impression, but at the same time you may ask, is printing also an anachronism, when it here is used to make the papers look like old?


Hege Cathrine Thoresen: Uten tittel

Beautiful dark interiors printed in mezzotint.


Hege Cathrine Thoresen: All the same but yet so different

Ceramic eggs on the floor, each has a printed text inside, like this: "Tell me what to search for".

*

Indeterminate Form - the title must rather point to the indeterminate future of printing than an indeterminate form of the printing process. To print something, the mould must first be definite and determinate. When the printing block is cut, there is no chance to change it. But the future of printing can be changed, it is not indeterminate, but relying on the future the printers create for it. After seeing these works, I am certain that I will see great printed art in the future.

Streetart in Tallinn 2012 #2

Streetart
Tallinn, Estonia
Summer 2012

Here is part 2 of what I found of streetart in Tallinn this summer:


The Mighty Hand - found many places in the Kalamaja area


Pyramid and rodent


Work by Multistab


Sex - so simple, so well done


Hang on, soon you are in the Kosmos
(Kosmos is also a cinema, not far from the sign)


Does anybody have a clue how the city kills the spirit?


Ostrich couple


Multistab and more - behind the main station


This paintbrush is found everywhere in the city


Art needs no artist
- found on the empty spot where the Art Academy used to be. The building was torn down to make room for a new, great academy building. But then the money ran out, or the politicians changed their mind. And no signs of a new building so far. The students are homeless, and the future art apparently has to appear without artists.

Streetart in Tallinn 2012 #1

Tallinn, Estonia
Summer 2012
Streetart


With strict laws against streetart and a rapidly changing city, there are always new art to find in Tallinn. This is the first part of what I found this summer:


Legalize Lenin


Because I never lose


Triangle and Square against Circle


Lighthouse portrait


The space between us is in the shape of an eye


Catriona


Positive key person


YLO turtle


This used to have art on it. Now it's shit
- this was written after the municipal effort to clean the City Hall building for streetart and graffiti. The building is in dear need of renovation, and there would probably be more reasonable (but less visible) ways of spending that money on the building. But now the artists has got a blank canvas to fill. I will look forward to see what it looks like next summer.


The City Hall after the cleaning


Car doodle on the City Hall


Mustache man


Solarized shower torso


Multistab


Every day the same shit


The Joker