09 March 2013

Sutharsan Bala: Relasjoner / Relay(tions)

Relasjoner / Relay(tions)
Sutharsan Bala
22.2.-23.6.13
Kinokino, Sandnes
Oil promotion videos

Relasjoner / Relay(tions) is an art relay going on at Kinokino. It started with the project of serving crow meat as a delicacy by Tove Kommedal, now the turn has come to Sutharsan Bala.

Sutharsan Bala: Relasjoner / Relay(tions)

Bala presents videos made for the oil industry. One is filled with beautiful landscapes, oil installations and serious business people in offices, all the time claiming how efficient, prosperous and environmental friendly they are. But the real gem is a video explaining deep sea drilling aspects through a metaphor of picking apples. The movie is slick, slightly humorous and very informative, it probably gets all oil company owners to clap their hands and all kids wanting to be oil engineers.

This mood is strengthened by a news article where a local company head claims there are too many youngsters being educated in dance and music, while the real need is for oil engineers. Comments to this article are included, dominated by angry men claiming art and culture is a waste of taxpayer money, while the real values are created on the oil rigs.

Sutharsan Bala: Relasjoner / Relay(tions)

I cannot help thinking there is an inherent irony in this, whether intended or not. As neither oil production or the use of its products can never become environmental friendly, it is hilarious to witness how important it now has become for oil companies to claim how "environmental friendly" they are. Knowing "environmental friendly" actual means "slightly less polluting". Especially the apple picking video, where oil drilling is explained by how to pick apples more efficiently, I clearly notice that no oil is shown at all, exept a short ride by the protagonist on a mini tractor.

Sutharsan Bala: Relasjoner / Relay(tions)

It is the setting that changes the mood of the videos. If displayed on the biennal oil fair nobody would question the content, but rather applaud the message. But in an art venue it has me thinking that things are maybe not as they seem. Hmmm... The art venue has an effect on me to become a thinking, rational, emotional and critical being. Maybe we need art and culture after all?


07 March 2013

Asle Nyborg: Det Ewfige Forderwfet

Det Ewfige Forderwfet
Asle Nyborg
21.2.-24.3.13
Galleri Gann, Sandnes
Photographs, phrases, print and prayers on canvas

At first glance Nyborg's works seems like Ikea decorations of happy people, nice patterns and positive quotes of Gandhi or Einstein. But not after a closer look. This is far more deep and dark.

Asle Nyborg: Not Enough
Not Enough 

With some kind of photographic process directly onto the canvas, the motives are vague, just hinting to what was the original photo. This is covering pages from an old prayer book of the 19th century, with an obsolete use of words in almost unreadable gothic types.

Asle Nyborg: Presis där!
Presis där!

Asle Nyborg: Tom + Safety Issues
Tom + Safety Issues 

Originally intended to illuminate the readers, these books were usually rather messengers of darkness. There were strict instructions of what to believe and which of the worldly joys to avoid (all things that might bring joy, more or less), and an insistence on how terrible and dark the world is. 

Asle Nyborg: Matt + Tanning + Hammersmith
Matt + Tanning + Hammersmith


The motives may relate to these themes, in what seems like a burial scene, a sexual scene, and in what seems to be everyday scenes, but may be filled with the temptations of this world. The vagueness, the underlying texts, the difficult old language and text, all create some kind of harmonic and beautiful dystopia.

05 March 2013

Jacob Brostrup

Nye malerier - New paintings
Jacob Brostrup
21.2.-17.3.13
Kunstgalleriet, Stavanger
Urban paintings

Brostrup makes beautiful paintings of urban landscapes. The buildings are seen from different angles, all mixed together in one painting. Streetview is combined with aerial view or reflections in pools on the ground, or rather a totally different landscape. The brushstrokes have different angles and directions. The paintings are great from a distance, and even stunning up close, with the stroke of each hair of the paintbrush visible, just as the details of each vehicle or window.

Jacob Brostrup: City Jam
Jacob Brostrup: City Jam

Jacob Brostrup: Rush + Glimpse
Jacob Brostrup: Rush + Glimpse

Jacob Brostrup: Getting Water
Jacob Brostrup: Getting Water

Jacob Brostrup: untitled
Jacob Brostrup: untitled

Elgin & Kox

Elgin & Kox
1.3.-28.4.13
Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger
Installations, paintings

In a wonderful dual exhibition of two quite different artists, things are not as they seem. Here is a game with materials, colors, balance and most of all appearance. Vera Kox uses strong materials to appear as fragile, soft material to appear as hard, heavy material to appear as heavy. Dag Erik Elgin lets painting appear as something else than a painting, and uses something else than a painting to represent paintings. 

Exhibition view
Exhibition view

Vera Kox's works are of bright colors and seemingly coincidential form. A splash of foam or icecream on a tall pole is really made of metal. A blue tablecloth or bathroom rug is really made of plaster. And a solid wrap of something solid with some liquid seeping out is really painted foam with solid details. Somthing that seems like candlewax may break in two any time, but is actually made of some very stable kind of plastic.

Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts + Dag Erik Elgin: Körper die ewig verschwinden
Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts + Dag Erik Elgin: Körper die ewig verschwinden

Dag Erik Elgin's works are not what they seem, or rather exactly what they seem. A title sign that used to belong to a picture, the transport box for the same picture, are painted in detail. Not only as a representation of the actual picture, but as individual pieces of art. In a chaotic mesh of white lines, German criterias for art aestethics are written. Nobody can claim that this picture lacks these features, it is there, written letter by letter.

Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts
Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts

Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts
Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts

Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts (detail)
Vera Kox: Temporary forms and permanent doubts

Dag Erik Elgin: Nicolas de Stäel, Composition No 1 (verso)
Dag Erik Elgin: Nicolas de Stäel, Composition No 1 (verso)

This is a wonderful experiment of combining two very different artists. Each artist's part of the exhibition is great, but together there is synergy created. 

03 March 2013

Allegori som allegori - irogella mos irogellA

Allegori som allegori - irogella mos irogellA
Sara Christensen, Kenneth Varpe, Trond Halvorsen, Ingeborg Kvame, Mona Orstad Hansen, Tove Kommedal, Andreas Soma, Jørund Aase Falkenberg
1.-3.3.13
Stavanger kunstmuseum
Installations, drawings, paintings, animations of artists from the Stavanger area

Ingeborg Kvame: The Moon had lost all its brilliance + Tove Kommedal: Kube 2 + Kenneth Varpe: Dilutions, Delusions
Ingeborg Kvame: The Moon had lost all its brilliance + Tove Kommedal: Kube 2 + Kenneth Varpe: Dilutions, Delusions

A flash exhibition of one weekend only at Stavanger kunstmuseum, before moving on to somewhere else. Organized by local artists, inviting artists that have moved away from Stavanger. Based on the topic of allegory as such, a wide platform offering the view of a great variety of artists and works. The location in the circular labyrinth at the art museum is great, allowing you to get lost in space and art. This shows the impressive quality and creativity emerging from this area, but it also shows the loss of artists leaving the area. 

Sara Christensen: I'll do the dishes
Sara Christensen: I'll do the dishes

Almost hitting the spot, or already sold

Kenneth Varpe: Dilutions, Delusions
Kenneth Varpe: Dilutions, Delusions

Part one of a truly beautiful work, a wall of 240 clay paintings, all depicting some kind of abstract landscape. In the next room the riddle is solved, all papers are put together in an animation, showing the neverending splashing of waves over a rock.

Mona Orstad Hansen: Pole, a reversal is already underway + Blow
Mona Orstad Hansen: Pole, a reversal is already underway + Blow

Mona Orstad Hansen's work in familiar and unfamiliar format, in her abstract canvas paintings and in prints rolled into pillars where only the edge is visible.

Kenneth Varpe: Twofold (Making Analogue Matter IV)
Kenneth Varpe: Twofold (Making Analogue Matter IV)

Triggering the curiosity, but not satisfying it by showing the whole picture, Kenneth Varpe is fully able to engage the viewers.

Andreas Soma: Cargo 1-26
Andreas Soma: Cargo 1-26

Detailed technical drawings of cargo ships with almost impossible amount of loads.

Jørund Aase Falkenberg: Og ikkje noko anna betyr noko + Mona Orstad Hansen: En blanding av hendelser
Jørund Aase Falkenberg: Og ikkje noko anna betyr noko + Mona Orstad Hansen: En blanding av hendelser

A christmas tree of extension cords, a mess of power. You will need to try a lot to find which one is the carrier of electricity. This could also be used to illustrate risk of fire through power overload.

Sara Christensen: Ephemeral Sustainability
Sara Christensen: Ephemeral Sustainability

Painting on unprepared canvas, showing details of something that could be of importance, we will never know, we just need to imagine.

Tove Kommedal: Kube 1
Tove Kommedal: Kube 1

A wonderful spacial effect of geometry, created by wooden strips on the walls.

Trond Halvorsen: Still Life
Trond Halvorsen: Still Life

"This PDF file has an error and cannot be printed." But then the error message was printed, indicating what could have been. So easy, so effective, so sinister. 

01 March 2013

Tango by Moi

Tango
Anette Moi
Tou Vindu, Tou Scene, Stavanger
27.2.-30.3.13
Mural of colorful tango dancers

Tango by Moi
Anette Moi presents colorful tango dancers, frozen in their passionate dance poses. Her unique style of bright colors and 2D personas are like caricatures of what we consider typical tango dancers. They are fixed in their movements, oozing passion. But is the passion between the couples or is it between each person and the viewer, you, or the camera? These people are not dancing together, they are posing for their viewers.

From the outside you see the whole scene, and each person is not as important as the mood of the whole scene. In the narrow gallery room you are too close, discovering that they all are flat figures painted on the wall. You need to carefully choose your viewing spot to be able to contemplate each figure as a person with characteristic traits.

Tango by Moi
Tango is considered the ultimate dance of passion. It is displayed in pictures of women in revealing dresses and provocative poses and men with bare chests and broad smiles. But is this the real tango or a staged version of it? Tango is never as visual passionate as on photos. Legs stretched up into the air, dresses barely covering strategic areas, roses held by the teeth, this is for real, but only in the touristic area La Caminita in Buenos Aires. The dancers strike their poses together with foreign tourists and hold it there as long as photographs are taken and the tip is payed. In the public squares and in the milongas (dance venues) the passion may be more real, but less visual. The dresses and the moves are beautiful but less provokingly sexual, rather subtile and honest.Though this is less photographic, as the couples are constantly moving, and the aestetic movements are quick, and appear at different moments for different couples. The passion is in the bodily dialogue between the dancers, not directed outwards to the viewer.

With as simle means as possible, just a dot in a circle, Anette Moi is able to convey these differences. The eyes are revealing where the dancers' focus are.

Tango by Moi