Tendens

Tendens
Graduation exhibition Rogaland Art School
15.5.-9.6.13
Stavanger Kunstforening

Again it is graduation time and it is time to see what the students of the second year at Rogaland Art School have been up to. Like always it is a great feeling entering the door having no idea what to expect. In my opinion this year two works stand out especially, but also others are worth mentioning:


Kari Bukve: Samtaler med havet

This could have been a slightly interesting piece of photo and installation art, but the circumstance makes it a brilliant and quite provocative conceptual work. The basis is elements from the oil industry, warning signs, scaffolding and oil samples. This is completed with photos on the walls, but some are covered, not visible. I was warned already before entering the room. The photos are made on oil platforms, and are not allowed being shown publicly. We are not even supposed to know which platform is portrayed, because of the fear of terror.Thus an artpiece meant to focus on the life on and around an oil installation is suddenly turned into a comment on fear of terror and seemingly over-protective rules. I become curious on what is being hid, what are they so secretive about.


Neringa Zibaite: Invisible personality

A wonderful line of work that must have taken some serious effort to produce. Onto four portraits two video portraits are projected. The portraits are beautiful enough, but the real magic appears up close. The faces are all made up of calligraphy. These are texts based on conversations with the portrayed persons. Their stories become what they look like, how we see them. Not all stories are possible for us to read or understand. In fact most of the stories are hard to read, but I see they are there. It would be sad if we could read everything about a person from its face, but it is a joy to be able to read some. 


Neringa Zibaite: Invisible personality (detail)

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Other impressive works:


Siv Evenmo: Until the day the entire thing falls to pieces under its own weight

A wild mess of textile, sand, paper, quite some space to explore.


Ingvild Hamre: Et hav av roser... et hav av kjærlighet

A collage of photos of roses, that you may watch while sitting on a bench listening to the sounds of the sea.


Tobias H. Omdahl: Untitled (In all honesty, I cannot give this work a title because it would not fit your story)

Sitting down you are sucked into the world of dystopian films. I sense that I recognise some elements, but then again they are probably rather moods. I need to create my own story, based on these factors.


Marita Sunde Olsen: Atlas Moth

A giant moth or butterfly is resting on the floor.


Cassi S. Aguilera: Category:Human

Simple pen portraits of laughing people. I start smiling myself.


Maria Fjell: My sexuality is everyone is hot and I am hungry + If you date me you date me, you can gouch my butt whenever you want + I can go from cute to a pervert in exactly 0.2 seconds+ I am an insecure mess + I have two moods: fuck you and fuck me

Moods of uncertainty and sexuality found on the web, turned into passionate portraits with challenging texts.


Tatiana Komarova: Bruk og Kast Rettigheter

An interesting blend of panting and stitches.


Berit Meyer Poulsen: Milestones (part)

Tying the exhibition together are these stone pillars placed all around in the halls.

Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors

Untitled Horrors
Cindy Sherman
4.5.-22.9.13
Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo
Photos, self-portraits

The main exhibition at Astrup Fearnley Museet at the moment is Untitled Horrors by photographer Cindy Sherman. These are manipulated photos, which is her speciality. This is a collection of her darker works. Some horrors are obvious, some less visible, but it is all based on the human she dresses up like and photographs. Some photos are simply too repulsive for my taste, while others rather contain a beautiful sense of melancholia. Some personas are so convincing I need to remind myself they are all self-portraits.




Untitled #514


Untitled #544

The Astrup Fearnley collection

The Astrup Fearnley collection
4.5.-31.12.13
Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo
Works from the collection of the museum

It is great fun wandering through the works the Astrup Fearnley Museum has aquired during the years. Well organized into the brand new halls of the new building, and complete with a smashing webpage, displaying ALL of the collection together with text descriptions. According to the webpage there is much more in store, so there will probably be many collection exhibitions during the next years.

Here are some few highlights:


Vibeke Tandberg - Living Together # 1-22


Jeff Koons: Michael Jackson and Bubble


Jeff Koons: Caterpillar Ladder


Anselm Kiefer: Barren Landscape


Anselm Kiefer: The High Priestess / Zweistromland

www.afmuseet.no

Michael Johansson: Familiar Abstractions

Familiar Abstractions
Michael Johansson (S)
8.3.-12.5.13
Vigeland-museet, Oslo
Installations

After seeing Johansson's work in Stavanger in 2008 he has been one of my favourite artists. He blocked the entrance door of the tiny gallery 21m3 with various items, perfectly fit into a puzzle exciting seen from both sides.

He takes it one step further in the majestic Vigeland museum in Oslo. From the storage rooms in the large museum he has picked items and fit them together. One of the entrance arches has thus become blocked, as well as one of the doorways inside the museum. Where you can otherwise walk around the whole courtyard inside the museum, you can now only get half way. One doorway is blocked, and the appearance seems totally different from each side of it. You may either run back and forth through the museum to check if it is the same items from both sides. Or you can cheat as I did, to photograph one side and compare it to the other side.



Monument

I end up just standing there recognizing objects and admiring how well they fit.


Monument


Dawn + Tetris - Vigeland-museet

But there is more. Freestanding cubes consisting of objects similar in colour, and a large cubical monument made of wooden cupboards. The arrangement is at the samt time reducing the objects to a part of the puzzle, and displaying each object as something important. Had they just been stuffed away somewhere or left in a corner, I would never have noticed that cupboard, vacuum cleaner, typewriter or briefcase. Now I notice them.



Firehundre nyanser av brunt II


These installations give me an urge to play tetris, or to start puzzling objects together. For our enjoyment Johansson offer us puzzles to finish. At least in our minds.

Just like the childhood plastic model car or airplane, with all parts hanging together in a plastic grid, he makes full size furniture. All items needed are there, you only need to release them from the grid. As they are made of metal that would be quite challenging, so you must do the separation and refitting of parts in your mind. In this way perfectly ordinary objects become quite interesting, and the assembly set package is a sculpture itself.


Foldable Ladder Assembly Kit + Some Assembly Required - Bunk Bed + Kitchen Assembly

Public art in the new government quartal

Public art
Do Ho Suh (South Korea), Kajsa Dahlberg (S), Vanessa Baird (N)
The new government quartal R6, Oslo
Installation, projection, mural

I would love to stick around just to see if someone trip over or get her high heels stuck in these sculptures. Not the gigantic sculpture of the few, important ones, but a mass of small, ordinary people, some so ordinary they are looking almost the same. Struggling to get teir heads up in the light, or struggling carrying heavy stone tiles. A wonderful symbolic as they are in the government quartal, in front of the Health and the Agricultural departments. A democratic sculpture of 50 000 bronse representatives of the inhabitants of Norway.


Do Ho Suh: Grass Roots Square


Do Ho Suh: Grass Roots Square


Do Ho Suh: Grass Roots Square



Kajsa Dahlberg: Hundre år på en arbeidsdag

A grey concrete wall, after a moment a message appears in light letters projected onto the wall. After a short while it disappears, only to be replaced by a new one. These are quotes from the 100 years' fight for female rights in Norway. The loop is 7,5 hours, exactly one workday, and as the title says: Hundred years in one working day.


Vanessa Baird: Lyset forsvinner - bare vi lukker øynene

One of three murals by Vanessa Baird, this one is in the entrance area, in the press conference room. A feast of references to folktales, to common Norwegian symbols, modern buildings, empty beds and people in despair. I wonder if the purpose is to distract the journalists from the messages delivered in this room, or to entertain them while they are waiting. 

Aija Vinkelmane & Kristin von Hirsch: Somewhere different

Somewhere different
Aija Vinkelmane & Kristin von Hirsch
20.4.-25.5.13
Kunstplass5, Oslo
Photo manipulations and paintings

People floating in bubble wrap or in greenhouses, and a mysterious woman appearing in different exotic settings. Manipulated photos of strange worlds are the works of Kristin von Hirsch, one of the two female artists displaying their works at Kunstplass 5.What is real, what is manipulated?


Kristin von Hirsch: I boblen


Kristin von Hirsch: Jakten

The other artist, Aija Vinkelmane, is bombarding us with colourful paintings of dream landscapes and everyday settings. The mix of motives makes us wonder what is real and what is fantasy.


Aija Vinkelmane: Somewhere Similar


Aija Vinkelmane: Magic room + Mountains

This is a brave mix of two very different artista, that in some strange way fit so well together. 

Streetart in Oslo

Streetart
The streets of Oslo
May 2013
Creative surprises found in Oslo this spring


Afro tiles


A wonderful placement by C215


Syden
- just a photo of a beach of Costa del Sol(?), bringing Mediterranean moods to Oslo.

And I spotted a wonderful truck all painted by Alice, but my photo reaction was not fast enough.

Andreas Eriksson: Recur

Recur
Andreas Eriksson
3.5.-21.6.13
Galleri Riis, Oslo
Structural paintings/installations

Strange forms are created of etched styrofoam. Landscapes created by the elements appear. This is a rapid visualisation of erosion. It is up to you to decide whether these are scale models of something, or if they contain a world just as they are.

Arne Malmedal: New paintings

New paintings
Arne Malmedal
3.5.-21.6.13
Galleri Riis, Oslo
Monochromes and abstract paintings

Arne Malmedal's monochromes are simultaneously at Kunstnerforbundet and Galleri Riis these days. What is there to say about monochromes? I might think about watching paint dry, but this is already dry. I end up looking for something in there, maybe a flaw, maybe some uneven layers. I am not able to settle with a plain, featureless surface of paint of one colour.



Untitled

To break the tension is an abstract painting, or maybe it is a painting of some mechanical detail. It feels like a relief. Here is something to study and consider.  


Untitled

Øystein Aasan + Arne Malmedal + Hilde Svalheim

Øystein Aasan + Arne Malmedal + Hilde Svalheim
2.5.-2.6.13
Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo


Øystein Aasan: Shelf-life


Arne Malmedal


Hilde Svalheim: Utenfor katalog + Del av det store bilde

Karl Teigen: The American embassy in Oslo

The American embassy in Oslo
Karl Teigen
15.2.-16.6.13
Nasjonalmuseet for arkitektur, Oslo
Photos of the US embassy in Oslo

A retrospective of 1959 photos of the then new US embassy in Oslo, built by the legendary architect Eero Saarinen. The photos belong to the museum collection and offer an insight to a building probably few have seen all the inside of. Symbolically the exhibition is held inside a vault in the museum, as the building used to be a bank.

Under 40

Under 40: Ung norsk arkitektur 2013
3.5.-29.9.13
Nasjonalmuseet for arkitektur, Oslo
The architecture of young Norwegian architects

Great fun at the National Museum of Architecture, as architects younger than 40 show off their ideas. A massive plywood maze-building you can walk into, a forest of bird houses, and beautiful styled showcases of several architects and architect companies. I was happy to even find some familiar works, for instance two examples from Sandnes.


Atelier Oslo: Corporeal Space


Atelier Oslo: Corporeal Space


Hus og Heim Arkitektur: House for a Medley of Norwegian Birds




Superunion Architects and Space Group: Lysning - Ruten Sandnes