It feels right to start off this season overview with a mention of the excellent exhibition featuring Kalle Grude at the Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo. Although Grude has been at it for decades, the name was new to Kunstkritikk’s reviewer, and probably to others who are not versed in the cerebral periphery of Norwegian art from the 1990s. Grude appears ambivalent about the object’s material value: the centrepiece of his exhibition is a huge industrial grinder with which he ground up a host of miscellaneous items lying around his studio. The remains can be found compressed and stuffed into small drawers in a filing cabinet also on display. This arch-conceptual gesture sets the tone for a somewhat low-key autumn season on the Norwegian art scene, where the main standouts belong to the camp of unspectacular and experimental art.
An echo of Grude’s grinder can be found in another of this autumn’s highlights: Institute for Degenerate Art’s comeback in mid-September at Christian Torp’s gallery in Oslo. The last time the collective made a public appearance, it ran its entire oeuvre through a food processor and then archived it, and itself, at Guttormsgaard Archive at Blaker in 2015. In an interview I did with them on that occasion (available in Norwegian only), they specifically pointed out that “in our case, visibility is not an indicator of activity.” This is to say that a lot, or nothing at all, may have happened since then – and the gallery promises new works!
The Guttormsgaard Archive programme also has a historical touch. Later this autumn, it will show an exhibition about the Danish art magazine Pist Protta. Protta has kept up its steam for more than forty years, publishing almost one hundred issues in inventive formats that often put the integrity of the magazine object to the test. The next issue is created specifically for the occasion, revolving around the archive. Before that, from mid-September, you can see graphic designer, calligrapher, illustrator, and photographer Kai Gjelseth’s magnum opus about world history from the perspective of brass, presented under the unrivalled title Ingen hater messing (No one hates brass). Incidentally, the archive hosted one of the spring season’s more intriguing exhibitions, presenting the thinking of the far-sighted, 100-year-old cyberneticist Warren Brodey, which I believe you still have a chance to see.
Anticipating technological development is also a theme for the Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF), which opens at the end of September under the heading Gnistsambandet (Sparks). Curator – and soon-to-be director of Bergen Kunsthall – Kjersti Solbakken has found inspiration in the history of the so-called Lofoten Line, a communication network established in the 19th century. It was supposedly one of the first-ever attempts at wireless telegraphic communication in the world and thus, as Solbakken speculated in an interview with Kunstavisen, “a kind of precursor to the mobile phone.” One of the artworks in the exhibition, by Elisabeth Brun, tells the bizarre story of when Elon Musk tried to buy her old elementary school to build an antenna park for his satellite system. Ha, ha.
Things get more down-to-earth in Eline McGeorge’s two overlapping exhibitions at Femtensesse and Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo in September–October. I don’t know what she will show at Kunstnerforbundet, but Femtensesse promises “field notes” in the form of watercolour sketches from residencies, collaborative projects, and study trips, focusing on climate change and disruptions of nature. And speaking of artists with two exhibitions on at once, Sverre Wyller will take over the Haugar Art Museum in Tønsberg with his first retrospective in late September. This overlaps with a solo show at Van Etten gallery in Oslo, opening in early October. Wyller’s practice as a sculptor and painter reaches back to the early 80s, and Haugar promises to bring to light social and political aspects of his oeuvre that have previously been under-communicated.
In early November, the exhibition BOMBA at Kunstnernes Hus will see Dag-Erik Elgin, another well-established figure in Norwegian art, prod and poke further into the history of modernist painting – looking specifically at Picasso’s Guernica (1937), which was shown at Kunstnernes Hus in 1938 – to say something about “the complex legacy of modernity and modernism, the technological and artistic innovations of these eras, and the continuation of war into the present.” Alongside Elgin, Kunstnernes Hus will launch a new exhibition series dedicated to the presentation of young artists, featuring newcomer Eli Mai Huang Nesse and a “video installation about human resilience.”
The institutions’ thirst for young blood, both in terms of the artists shown and the visitors attracted, has increased noticeably in recent years. A case in point is Munch Museum’s exhibition series ‘Solo Oslo’, intended to introduce us to “the new generation” of artists (and curators/communicators). In practice, however, attention has focused mainly on quite established artists, such as Sandra Mujinga and Piya Wanthiang. Constance Tenvik, who is up next, is no exception in this respect. “I think this is a good moment to poke fun at imperialist thinking,” the artist is quoted as saying on the museum’s website. We will find out exactly what that means in October, but based on the artist’s track record we may safely assume that it will be brimming with exuberant energy.
At the end of the month, Bergen Kunsthall will open a solo show featuring Mayan artist Edgar Calel, supposedly “a leading voice of institutional critique among a broad generation of Latin American artists.” His works are, the venue explains, a tribute to the traditions and spirituality of the Mayan Kaqchikel tradition in Comalapa, Guatemala. Furthermore, the works engage in an attentive relationship with the Earth and the elements and challenge Western conventions and views of permanence. Concurrently with this, Bergen Kunsthall will house a smaller presentation featuring Swedish artist Åsa Elzén, who examines the legacy of the queer feminist collective the Fogelstad Group (founded 1921), known among other things for a critical attitude towards industrial agriculture.
This year’s instalment of the Coast Contemporary festival will take place in Oslo and Bergen at the turn of September–October, focusing on the shared meal as its overall theme. Here we will be introduced to artists and curators who work with food activism, experimental cooking, degrowth, agriculture, and more. The politics of food will also be in evidence in Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen’s exhibition at Kunsthall 3.14 in mid-September, where he presents a project that involves breeding a super chicken with genes from all the world’s chicken breeds, making it more disease-resistant than the commercial breeds. A more personal take on our relationship with animals can be seen around the same time at Kunsthall Trondheim, where Emilie Louise Gossiaux will create an exhibition about her guide dog, London.
The larger museums are not making much of a splash this autumn. The highlight, as far as I can see, is Between Rivers at the Astrup Fearnley Museum, an international group exhibition of art that addresses rivers and waterways and the impact they have on life and society. Elsewhere in Oslo, The National Museum of Norway appears to have spent most of its energy on a strong spring programme; this autumn, it will settle for presenting an exhibition featuring Norwegian painter Else Hagen (1914–2010) which has already been shown at the local art museums in Trondheim and Stavanger. At the Stavanger Art Museum, a historical display of Polish sculpture from 1960 to 1989 is sure to be well worth seeing; it opens at the end of September. In other museum news, the Northern Norwegian Museum of Art in Tromsø is scheduled to inaugurate its new branch in Bodø in December, marking the occasion by presenting an exhibition of works from the collection. Incidentally, the museum lost yet another director this summer when Katya García-Antón resigned before completing her term.
Trondheim Kunstmuseum takes over Anna Odell’s exhibition Rekonstruktion – Psyket (Reconstruction – The Psychiatric Ward), which we reviewed when it was shown at Cecilia Hillström Gallery in January. The work draws on the artist’s own experiences with the psychiatric treatment system. A similar critique of power with a psychological angle is also served up by Danish artist Jules Fischer, whom Kunstkritikk interviewed last year. In the exhibition Lesions at the Young Artists’ Society (UKS) in September, they will present a large-scale performance work that dives into “the pain of loving and the systems that produce gender.” Striking a melancholic note suited to the season, it makes for a fitting conclusion to this rundown.
