Forming Ideas Notes – Norway & Iceland
Notes on Institutions & Galleries in Norway and Iceland
Permanenten Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum (Bergen Art Museum)
Rasmus Meyers allé 3
7&9 N-5015 Bergen
Tel: 00 47 55 56 80 00
Curator Anne Britt Ylvisåker
Featured new displays of silverware with units presented like a bird’s nest. Other displays questioned notions of taste – good and bad – and incorporated some of the museum’s contemporary acquisitions.
Hordaland Art Center (HKS)
Klosteret 17
PB 1745 Nordnes
5816 Bergen
Tel: 00 47 55 90 85 90
Director: Ane Szefer Karlsen
Established in 1976 as the first art centre in Norway by 2 artists unions, very much a result of 70s activism. 4 main areas of activity: exhibition programme; events including seminars and presentations; Outside Programme – used to be touring exhibitions but now focus on collaborative projects with artists; art in public spaces. 100% regional government funded. Annual budget £200,000. 2.4 staff.
Since 1987, has had a guest studio programme, which from 2008 has been open to international artists, curators, writers and others in the arts. Offers studio space and a flat with a grant. A jury selects 3-4 residencies a year. Artists are not expected to produce work from the residency but give talks.
Since 2007, HKS has collaborated with the MA programme at the National Academy of Bergen. Twice a year MA students have the opportunity to apply for a weekend exhibition. They are offered mentoring in putting on the show. Unsuccessful applicants are offered evaluation on their application. A high percentage of MA graduates choose to stay in Bergen.
Has an ongoing collaboration with the fifth grade at Nordnes school. Reception includes an accessible archive of regional artists. At weekends there is an open café with newspapers and art magazines.
Artists tend to apply for funding from the city of Bergen and the Arts Council (less so the regional government). The Arts Council has different committees for different areas of the arts, there is a larger annual grant for literature in Bergen. Artists can apply for exhibition grants which are assessed every September. Grants to support artists to live and work are available for 1-3 years. State funded organisations cannot apply for project funding from the Arts Council. Bergen has been in a strong position as far as supporting artists is concerned and artists have enjoyed grants for residencies overseas.
Verftet. United Sardine Factory (USF)
Gergernes Verft 12
5011 Bergen
Tel: 00 47 55 30 74 10
A multi-disciplinary cultural centre (including dance centre, musicians studios, stage, and architects) occupying a disused sardine processing factory founded in 1993. Includes some 60-70 artists’ studios. Artists first began using the space as far back as 1984 when they had to do a lot of renovation.
Artists’ studios visited; Ǻse Ljones – hand-made embroidered works, no machine processes, meditation in repetition. Previously worked in fish skin and rubber. Technique taken from traditional national costume adapted to contemporary idiom. Has participated in Collect and exhibited at Flow gallery; Ida C. Helland-Hansen – mixed media on textile (canvas) ground, worked in layers; Eli Veim; textile artist, Maria Udd – combines public commission with product design, clothes and accessories; Siri Tollefsen – textile artist, studied in Bergen. Mostly silk-screen printing, largely functional eg pillows, tablecloths. Also employs embroidery, applique, all individual, one-offs. Also works for a commercial textile agency. Simple, precise, humorous bird themes predominate. Sells in shops, craft markets and galleries in the north of Norway. She and Maria Udd considering setting up their own shop, also selling on-line. Not only their own work but other makers as well. Discussed the notion of ‘slow-crafts’ – knowing the provenance of an object, investment in the local the hand-crafted. There is nowhere at present where makers can sell their work at USF, although they do hold an annual market and open studios every 2 years.
Galleri Format
Vagsalmenningen 12
5014 Bergen
Tel: 00 47 55 30 48 90
Director: Stine Tveten
Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts (membership approx. 900, founded in 1975) Gallery in the premises of an old bank, listed building which presents difficulties with maintenance and what they can do with the fabric. Very poor frontage, not obvious from the street what is in it as there is no shop window as such. Association also runs a gallery in Oslo which makes more sales..
Only a small percentage of the membership is active is supplying stock for the gallery which takes 40% commission. Also runs temporary exhibitions. Receives 70% subsidy from the government. Upstairs there is an independent gallery Foundation 3.14, 100% state funded, Arts Council and regional government. Funded 10 years ago, runs an international programme of exhibitions.
Lyd Galleriet www.lydgalleriet.co
Only gallery specialising in sound and acoustic installation in Nordic countries, currently running an exhibition called ‘Vinyl’
S12 Glass Gallery
Skostredet 12
N-5017 Bergen
Tel: 00 47 91 64 51 86
Owner and artist: Æsa Bjørk Thorsteinsdottir. Studied MA Glass making in Iceland. S12 begun in 2004/05. Only one of its kind in Norway, open to recently graduated and professional glass makers for studio space and use of kilns. A collaborative project with a very flat management structure. Current exhibition “Young & Loving” 3rd exhibition of this title, makers could be drawn from anywhere although there is an emphasis on Nordic countries. Many talented makers are coming out of the art school in Bjornholm and USA (Rochester College). Features recent graduates showing recent trends in experimental, conceptual glass making. The Gallery also exhibits work by established artists. Funding comes from City of Bergen and Norwegian Arts Council and Norwegian Arts and Crafts Association plus sponsorship from banks. Most of the work is done on a voluntary basis. Graduates, who make up the biggest group of users of the kilns, are given a 30% discount (full price 2,000 Kr per day) and artists can seek grant funding to use the facilities. The kilns close down during the summer months when use is low. More and more artists see staying in Bergen a viable option after graduating although 80% still make their way to Oslo. Early days for the market in non-functional glass. The art collectors market is both small and conservative and what there is is more likely to favour established fine artists.
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design
Kristian Augusts Gate 23
Oslo
Tel: 00 47 21 98 20 20
Seminar ‘Crafts of Norway and Utstillingen -09’
Speaker Art Historian Synnøve Vik, Exhibitions Coordinator of Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts. Examined some of the recent tendencies in Norwegian arts and crafts specifically the emergence of conceptual crafts in the past 15 years. ‘Creating Artistic Value’ Project at Bergen Academy, highlighted the increased use of the ready made and recycled, artists investing value in the ‘useless’, cited Duchamp’s ready made art eg the urinal. Many crafts people using industrially produced ready mades but as a point of departure rather than the finished product; the objects were adapted or worked on further. In 2008, at Galerie Voss, Bergen, an exhibition examined second-hand objects. Artists invited by Salvation Army to use objects from its shops. Siri Brekke ‘Table Ware Stories’ 2008, ceramics given a new political context – comprised of a line of English plates with quotes from a website on globalisation. Lise Schønberg ‘Lysestaker’ 2008, candle holders collected from all over the world. Caroline Slott ‘Multiple Blue 1’ 2007 – collected blue and white plates, scraped away section of the original blue design; Ingrid Nord ‘Tupperware’ 2008 – plastic objects encased in glass blocks denying them their original function; TEMP collective ‘Moving Places, Moving Objects’ 2008 – souvenir plates from holiday destinations, cliché, kitsch items, public contributed their own plates which were hung on an idealised beach scene mural; Elise Hatlø ‘Necklace 1’; Nanna Melland ‘687 Years’ – used contraceptive coils; Louise Nippierd ‘Sultent hjerts..’ feminine identity, aggressive, steel? Armour pieces; Anna Talbot ‘Redwolf’ 2009 – draws on fairy tales, about sexuality; Anne Lene Løvhang – ornaments, crochet wrapped china wrens (ready mades) 2005, ‘Organ 1’ 2005 crocheted human organs; Benjamin Slotterøy ‘Sock Sculpture’ 2008 – ascribing value to social activities, collected old knitted socks from isolated parts of Norway and knitted them into a large tapestry, visitors to the exhibition were invited to contribute, value resides in the relationship between the artist and the participating audience. ‘Flag’ – audience invited to design their own flag; Borghild Rudjord Unneland, textile artist from Bergen, performance ‘Strikk 7’ 2007- knitting with enormous needles and ball of wool, comments on the performative nature of knitting (women’s activity); Siri Berqvam ‘2 hours + 15 minutes’ 2007 installation, staging of an abandoned kitchen as though something unforeseen had happened. All knitted and crocheted; Siri Ensrud, embroidery based on clothing patterns from old magasines, reminiscent of architectural design drawings, questions traditional male and female spheres of activity and the value accorded to each. Materiality of Objects: Kjersti Lunde (ceramicist from Bergen) ‘The Altered Object = New Manipulated Presence’ 2008, hanging white garments actually dipped in slip and fired in porcelain, the transitory nature of the garment transfomed; Tua Broms (recent ceramics graduate from Bergen) ‘Matter’ 2009 floor to ceiling vertical column of seaweed used in Sushi; Lars Skjelbreia ‘7 meters’ 2009 video installation, showing growth of tree, proposes respect for nature.
2nd Speaker Sigurd Bronger, renowned jewellery and metalwork artist. As a goldsmith in Amsterdam cam into contact with Galerie RA. 2005 – ‘Craft in Dialogue’ (Iaspis) Stockholm exhibition. In the collection of Mima, Middlesborough. Takes part in Schmuck a major annual exhibition in Munich.
Tanja Saeter Oslo based glass artist who trained in south Sweden 1996 onwards, has been represented at 100% Design every year since 2003. Started experimenting with fused glass after an injury to her arm, and then combined fused and blown glass, describes herself as obsessed with technical perfection. Began a sort of free experimentation with doddle-like wall mounted glass, very abstract, disillusioned with design wanted to go back to the material. At Linköping school library translated the children’s drawings into glass.
Momentum Nordic Biennale of Contemporary Art at Momentum Kunsthall and Galleri F15 (Director Dag Aak Sveinar); Moss, Curator Stina Hägkvist. Exhibition features 31 Nordic artists, this is the 5th, has been running since 1998.
PO Box 1033
N-1510 Moss
Tel: 00 47 69 27 54 10
Galleri RAM artist-run gallery.
Kongens Gate 3
0153 Oslo
Tel: 00 47 22 33 59 92
Featured exhibition of Mona Naess, porcelain dipped animal bones on operating table.
Gallery has been in existence for 20 years. Artists (both established and up-and-coming) are selected by a board of 4 members which meets once a year, 2 from Arts and Crafts Association and one from Public Art Norway. Shows installation, site-specific work, material based, not painting or photography. The gallery is a non-profit organisation run on public funding via the Ministry of Culture. Shows predominantly Norwegian artists but not exclusively.
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