Article Biennal 2015

Article Biennal
6.2.-1.3.15
Stavanger kunstmuseum
Unstable and experimental art biennal

This year the unstable and experimental art of Article biennal has got a quite stable venue, in Stavanger Art Museum. But instead of displaying the past, what a museum usually does, it shows the future. Or rather a possible future.

What happens when science becomes art? Or even when science is no more science but solely art?Can it go the other way too, may art suddenly become science, and is it still art then?


Next Nature: Nano Supermarket

In a possible future, nano technology may determine the taste of the wine, the sex of your children, may be used to send smell digitally and make synthetic food. Probably. Or maybe.


Heather Dewey-Hagborg: Stranger Visions

Based on found material like hair and cigarette butts, the artist identify some DNA aspects, and creates 3D prints of possible looks of the owner of the DNA. Still so many factors are left out that we may never know if she ever came close. In that case she has created faces that never existed, which is even more creepy.


Paul Vanouse: Latent Figure Protocol

In the future we may be able to tweak the DNA to form the artworks we want, like Paul Vanouse did in these workshops creating the infinity symbol.


Paul Vanouse: Suspect Inversion Centre

In the future we may also be able to design our own DNA, or at least design what it looks like. You may like yours to look like O.J.Simpson's like in this experiment. (Who would really want that?)


Kate Nichols: Figments + Visible Signs of Indeterminate Meaning 1 + Lab Notebook 2008-2014        
And the future may bring new technology and material for artworks, as in these silver nanoparticles on glass.
                 

Apchi Team studio visit

Apchi Team
studio visit
January 2015
Stavanger
Abstract murals
www.facebook.com/apchiteam

The streets of Stavanger are world famous every September during the Nuart festival. But otherwise there is not much happening in the streets. The murals by Pøbel and Østrem are slightly fading, and few other additions are made by local artists.

But lately some geometrical colorful motives have appeared, notifying that something is brewing. These are the works of the Apchi Team, based in Stavanger. Their public works have been of limited size so far, with the most remarkable on a lighthouse. But I am dreaming of some day seeing one of their elaborate works on large scale on a public wall.

On a visit to their studio I was thrilled to see what they are capable of doing when they have decent walls and plenty of time at hand. The guys are mixing symbols, pictograms and geometry in a unique style. Have a look:



APCHI signature


SSSR


Wise One


Untitled


Ashka


Planks


Everybody Up

More art by Apchi Team:
Exhibition at Café Sting, september 2014
Public works

Edvard Munch: Fotografiske selvportretter og skjebnefotografier

Fotografiske selvportretter og skjebnefotografier
Edvard Munch
10.1.-1.2.15
Kinokino/Sandnes Kunstforening
Photographs

In an exhibition travelling throughout Norway we see a selected number of photos made by Edvard Munch, an artist mostly known for his paintings. The photos are from two periods in his life: As a young artist in 1902-08 and as an old man in 1930-33. The photos chosen are mainly selfportraits or even "selfies" way ahead of their time. The photos are fully arranged by the artist, using techniques as double exposure and movement, and the artist is obviously posing for the camera. The rather limited collection of photos is deliciously arranged in the large exhibition spaces at Kinokino.                  

Natasja Askelund: Indestructible

Indestructible
Natasja Askelund
22.1.-8.1.15
Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger
Abstract paintings                      

Natasha Askelund continues to surprise us by making unpredicted turns in her creation prosess. In "Two of a kind" two years ago she painted over her earlier paintings, changing naturalistic to monochrome. This time she has turned to abstracts and minimalism. There is not much paint on the giant canvases, leaving the impressing that the painting floats out on the walls and is everywhere. Some of the strokes are so delicate you almost wonder if they are there at all, or at the edge of the canvas, making you wonder what is behind the frame. The impression is that the paintings we only see a hint of, are paintings that have always been there and will always be there even if you remove the canvases. They are indestructible.

Morten Berentsen: Fotografier

Fotografier
Morten Berentsen
15.1.-12.2.15
Galleri Muségaten, Stavanger
Layered photographs                    

Photos of worn walls combined with delicate dancers create a mood of tranquility, fragility, beauty and despair.

Kirsa Andreasen: Amores Perros

Amores Perros
Kirsa Andreasen
24.1.-22.2.15
Kunstgalleriet, Stavanger  
Paintings  

Kirsa Andresen is back in Kunstgalleriet. I liked her work then, and I do so now too. In "Conversin' with the elders" in 2012 she had classical landscape paintings as background for her unique figures. Again there is the contrast of two-dimensional persons on top of three-dimensional background, but this time the backgrounds are stills of a video from a travel from Denmark through Sweden to Norway. Last time the figures were rather harmonic and happy, now they are obviously missing something, or are seriously hurt.