Azar Alsharif, "Priceless Precision"

Azar Alsharif, "Priceless Precision", 2012

Azar Alsharif, "Priceless Precision", 2012

Azar Alsharif, "Priceless Precision", 2012

Azar Alsharif, "Priceless Precision", 2012

Trine Mauritz Eriksen, "Moderato Cantabile"

I went to Svalbard for 10 days this Easter. It was my first time there, and I had expected to see spectacular landscape and beautiful light. But I had not been able to imagine just how intense and different the arctic light would be, and I was surprised by the calm, cloister-like feeling I got from moving around in the wide, white expanse.

With no trees and simple, consistent lines, the Svalbard landscape reminded me of the hills in New Mexico, the way  Georgia O'Keeffe painted them.

Kåre Tveter, "Innover breene". Photo from artnet.

One evening, as I sat in a cabin looking across the ice covered fjord at very light blue mountains that were barely discernible from the late night (but light!) evening sky, it struck me how difficult it must be to convey such simple beauty in painting. I know that many artists have tried, and I saw quite a few attempts in Longyearbyen, but most often I thought the result became too sweet and cliché. 

However, in the departure hall in Longyearbyen Airport, a three part work by Trine Mauritz Eriksen sums up the arctic light and landscape very well. It is titled "Moderato Cantabile", a musical term that I think covers a similar feeling to that calm, almost meditative mood I mentioned above.

Trine Mauritz Eriksen, "Moderato Cantible", Svalbard Airport, Photo: Birger Amundsen.

Trine Mauritz Eriksen, "Moderato Cantible", Svalbard Airport, Photo: Birger Amundsen.

Having experienced some grey days during my stay, and knowing that winter in the Arctic is completely dark, save the Northern Lights, I very much enjoyed the play of light and subtle colors in her non-figurative interpretation, made from twisted strips of colored wool.

Cerith Wyn Evans

Cerith Wyn Evans, "Untitled", 2010, one part of the installation S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E
("Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive's overspill") Photo from Bergen Kunsthall.

I walk between trunks of light. And I unwittingly slow down my pace.

The light itself is warm and comforting - not too bright - and I notice that it changes slowly. While one trunk is almost completely dimmed, another one reaches a peak of brightness.

It is as if those poles of light make the entire room radiant with a subtle, otherworldly energy. And when I stand close, I can feel a round and friendly - I'll almost say loving - heat.

But there is also sound.

- Can sound be warm? - Can I wrap it around me like a thick - but lightweight - comforter?

The entire room oscillates. - Walls like bellows that breathe very calmly. - And a small wood of light-trunks that grow (eternally?) into the ceiling, from far below the floor.

Dan Colen, "Peanuts"

Dan Colen, "Silent Treatment", gum on canvas, 2010. Photo from afmuseet.

When you Google Pictures search "Dan Colen" you get as many photos of cool art dudes partying as you do artworks he has made. That makes me apprehensive. - Like I was when I arrived at his Astrup Fearnley Museum "Peanuts" show last weekend.

And his chewing gum pictures confirmed my prejudice. They give off an air of art school adolescence, and are not very different from this painting which he has found and included in his show:

Dan Colen, "The Big Swirl", found painting, 2006.
Photo from Joshua Abelow Art Blog.

Colen and the group of art buddies he used to hang out with have been called the "Bowery School", from The Bowery in New York. For a short while in the 1990s I lived on St. Mark's place (close to The Bowery) together with aspiring artists of many different disciplines. And often I would see helpless artwork like the one above put out on the sidewalk to be chucked into a garbage truck.

What was interesting, I thought, when I saw "Silent Treatment" and "The Big Swirl" hanging next to each other in the Astrup Fearnley exhibition, was that Colen's chewing gum canvas only barely rests on the right side of the boarder towards a less than mediocre art school student's desperate attempt to come up with something original ... - Chewing gum!

Dan Colen, "Self-portrait as the wanderer
(as I pause to ponder: do real men break hearts?
I decide yes! They do. Only to later change my mind.)",
 oil on found painting, 2004. Photo from afmuseet.

There are quite a few found paintings in the show to which Colen has painted additions. - Like the one above that I show in a small version to protect under age viewers...

This hangs on a wall all by itself, and becomes quite poetic - even touching - by way of its title.

Dan Colen, "Eviction Party", flowers on canvas, 2010. Photo from afmuseet.

The flower pictures radiate a similar poetic sensibility. - Those fresh, but perishable colors smeared into an unprimed canvas ...

Dan Colen, "The Whole Enchilada", 2010. Photo from Kunstkritikk.

And even this knocked over flagpole becomes an image of general sadness and loss, rather than a political statement.

All this subtle and potent poetry finally managed to outshine Colen's insisting cool, and it proved my visit to the Astrup Fearnley Museum worth while.

With this new - more positive - attitude I was even able to find something interesting in his banal text paintings:

Dan Colen, "Holy Shit", Photo from jameswagner.

"Holy Shit" placed upside down is more interesting than "Holy Shit" placed the right way.

Dan Colen, "Holy Shit", Photo from Peres Projects.

And "Holy Shit" mirrored is more interesting than "Holy Shit" upside down.

Dan Colen, "Holy Shit" t-shirt, Photo from Urban Outfitters.

But "Holy Shit" on t-shirts from Urban Outfitters becomes far too much!
(It is this consumerism - latent in all the text paintings - that makes them annoying.)

***
(Norwegian readers should check out Kjetil Røed's excellent review of "Peanuts" at Kunstkritikk.)

Tino Sehgal, "This Progress"

Photo from Kunstnernes Hus.

I was not disappointed.
My expectations were high. I came all the way from Bergen just to listen and experience. And I am happy I did.

First I listened to the talk on Friday.
About his interest in dance as an activity that does not produce material products (which he considers problematic because one cannot engage with them). Inter human communication is much more interesting, Sehgal says. And he does not want his works to be documented (to be made into material products) because one has to experience them first hand. The quality of the experience, says Sehgal, is more important than access to information about it.

When I came back to experience "This Progress" on Saturday, I understood better his aversion towards documentation. Until then, I had just read about his work and seen a few illicit photographs of it. What I had read and seen made me very interested in its conceptual aspects, but having experienced "This Progress" live, I realise that the gap between contemplating his concept intellectually and actually experiencing it is much wider than it is in the instance of object based conceptual works, like Joseph Kosuth's "One and Three Chairs":

Joseph Kosuth, "One and Three Chairs", 1965. Photo from MoMA.

Elsewhere in this blog I have stated that what I enjoy most about art is the way it can alter my perspectives. A painting, a photograph or a video can make me think, feel and understand something in a different way than a factual text can do. But that kind of interaction with a material work is very dependent on my own initiative and thus limits itself to my projections of meaning. For instance, Joseph Kosuth's "One and Three Chairs" cannot ask me questions that I myself do not think of while standing in front of it.

Tino Sehgal's "This Progress", however, can (on a very literal level) ask me questions, and that is exactly what it does.

As I entered Kunstnernes Hus on Saturday, a young girl (11 years old?) came over to me and said "This is a work by Tino Sehgal." Thinking about it now, that statement itself induces many questions: What is the work? Is it you? Is it you talking to me? Is it me answering you? Well, I did not think about all this then, because I had to focus on the question she actually asked me: "What is progress?"

From there on, the piece could have taken many directions. I could have decided that this was not something I wanted to take part in, or I could have given a nonsensical answer and thus sabotaged (?) the intention behind the work, but either way I would have already become a part of it.

Nice and clever as I want to be, I tried my best to give as good an answer as possible using terms that I thought the young girl would understand. And strolling through one of the downstairs galleries at Kunstnernes Hus with this sympathetic young girl was very enjoyable, even though I was slightly distracted by self-conscious thoughts about being partially responsible for the execution of the work ...

But I warmed up quickly enough, and really got going when I was handed over to a young man (around 20) who asked me how I have experienced progress in my own life. He took me up the back stairs to one of the second floor galleries, and there I was handed over again, to a woman (around 40) who listened patiently to a couple of stories I told her as an answer to her statement that people should not keep cats or dogs as pets ... By the time I had to leave (the man (around 60) who was the last one I talked to was told by Sehgal that he had to go talk to somebody else), I had really taken advantage of the chance to just ramble on ...

When it was over, I sat down for some lunch to digest the experience.
I thought about the interpreters (the people who talked to me): How demanding it must be to stay present and attentive towards so many different people throughout the day! Do they consider the conversations rewarding or just hard work? How much are the conversations really worth as constructive interaction, and how much are they "tainted" by the excitement inherent in the situation (the thought of being a piece of art ...)?

Well, while I was sitting there in the ground floor restaurant looking out at the beautiful winter sun on the trees and snow across the street, I nourished a very good feeling: I was moved by the interaction itself, - the simple beauty of meeting four people I newer knew, in a setting that in its strict limitations became liberating. When else do I get to talk to complete strangers about important matters without having to wonder about their agenda, the impression they have of me, etc.?

I was tempted to go again, to try once more. But I decided I had had my chance, and I was afraid the experience might be watered down a second time. It would perhaps have been interesting, though, to see what would be different if other "interpreters" had taken me around, or if I had come on a day that was not the busy opening day. (Jerry Saltz did five rounds of "This Progress" at the Guggenheim and managed to make the artwork cry ...)

Dan Perjovschi, "WHAT HAPPENED TO US?"

Photo from THE L MAGAZINE

Another MoMA project.
The one I showed the other day was number 50. This one was number 85, and it was up on the tall white wall in MoMA's lofty atrium during the summer of 2007.

Dan Perjovschi had drawn his cartoons directly on the wall (see video below), and they were printed in this newspaper, of which everybody was free to take a copy. - So of course I did :-)

And since then, I have used it as an introduction to US politics in all the English classes I have taught. I think the image above forms a particularly useful starting point for looking into US politics and for taking a look at how the US perceives the rest of the world...

The images below are political on a more general (and a more or less personal) level.

Photo from artnet

Photo from Colectivo BolaExtra

Photo from pointofview

Photo from PAVILION

Tino Sehgal

One very positive consequence of blogging is learning a lot from blogs that I read. And while having been mostly stuck in Bergen, Norway the last ten years, I have missed out on quite a bit. For instance: Tino Sehgal.

David M. Heald © SRGF, New York. (the village VOICE)

This (illicit!) photo (replaced by a photo of the Guggenheim rotunda) shows his living sculpture "Kiss", in which dancers were hired to execute a very slowly evolving embrace that lasted throughout the museum's opening hours, every day for a month and a half. The work is owned by the Museum of Modern Art and was loaned to the Guggenheim as part of its 50th Anniversary celebrations early last year. But there exists no official photographic documentation of "Kiss" or of this particular effectuation of it, and as an attempt to counteract the material commodification of artworks, Sehgal sells his works exclusively by oral agreement, without any written contracts. (For critical comments about this strategy see: ARTslanT and Escape Into Life.)

While this and one other work by Sehgal were shown, the Guggenheim rotunda was empty for the fist time since it opened to the public 51 years ago (there were no other artworks to be seen), and the photo gives a good impression of Frank Lloyd Wright's beautiful architecture (which I mentioned in a recent post about Felix Gonzalez-Torres). Sehgal's work not only thrives from being shown at the Guggenheim like Gonzalez-Torres's did in 1995, the second work by Sehgal that was shown there last year requires participation from the audience in a similar way as Gonzalez-Torres's work does.

That second work is titled "This Progress", and exists only as individual conversations with the audience. Actors of different ages (a child at the bottom and a person in late middle age at the top) accompany visitors on their way up the spiraling rotunda while engaging them in conversations about progress. I would have loved to try this out myself and to describe my experience here, but since I have not had the chance to take part in "This Progress", I will rely on Holland Cotter's story from The New York Times:

It begins when you walk a short way up the rotunda ramp. A child comes over to greet you. My greeter, a girl of 9 or 10, introduced herself as Giuliana and stated matter-of-factly, “This is a piece by Tino Sehgal.” She invited me to follow her and asked if she could ask me a question. “What is progress?” I gave a broad answer, then at her request, a clarifying example. We went further up the ramp.

Soon we were joined by a young man, a teenager, who said his name was Will. Giuliana carefully and accurately paraphrased for him my response to her question and slipped away. I walked on with Will, who commented on my comments on progress, which prompted me to try to refine my initial thoughts.

About halfway up the rotunda, Will was replaced by Tom, whom I took to be in his mid-30s and who introduced a new topic.

He had read a scientific report that morning saying that dinosaurs, long envisioned as drab-gray and green, might have been brightly colored, even gaudily striped. We had both, we said, been fascinated by dinosaurs as kids, as was his young son today. And now everyone would have to reimagine them, though artists already had done that. So Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” turns out to be natural history. Art beats science to the punch.

As we neared the last stretch of the ramp, Tom handed me over to Bob, who was, like me, in late middle age and who broached another topic. He had just returned from Bulgaria where he had talked with a range of people over 20 about their feelings about the state of their country and lives. He found, he said, a pervasive nostalgia for life under Communism, a yearning for a society that promised to take care of everyone.

The Guggenheim Museum says about this requirement for the audience to participate that "a visitor is no longer only a passive spectator, but one who bears a responsibility to shape and at times to even contribute to the actual realization of the piece".

Uta Barth

Uta Barth, "Ground #30", 1994. Sies + Höke Galerie.



This blurry photograph from the "Ground" series by Uta Barth gives us just enough information to see the corner of a room. It is photography on the brink of complete abstraction. And it shows very clearly that photographs are created by light. The light that falls from the window high up to the left, and the shadows that are formed as the light's negation, build space.

I see painterly qualities in this photograph that remind me of Harald Fenn's paintings. But the most obvious reference is "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer.

Uta Barth, "Ground #42", 1994. Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

It is as if these "Ground" series photographs could be backgrounds for portraits where the sitter would be in sharp focus. And the feeling of vacancy or void that is left by the missing subject is particularly apparent in this "Ground #42". The small reproductions towards the upper left look like they just happened to be included as a background for a sitter that simply is not there. And compositionally they are balanced by whatever it is that has snuck into the image from the right.

If you look more closely at the top left "painting", you can see that it may very well be a reproduction of the Vermeer I mentioned above...

And if you would like to depart from the more or less literal references these photographs induce, you could try to see them as representations of fleeting thoughts or vague memories...

Uta Barth, invitation card from exhibition at Sies + Höke Galerie, 2008. (Sundial series)

Then there is this image from the "Sundial" series. It is sharply focused, but it has the same vacant center as the photo above. My attention is drawn towards the yellow coach because it almost looks like it is slipping out of the picture, but for some reason it is the shadow that marks the transition between wall and ceiling I end up looking at. Maybe because this is yet another photo that is mostly about light, - about how the light changes through the day (in Barth's own home).

As Lyra Kilston points out in ArtReview:

Barth has long followed the Zen notion of what she calls a ‘choice of no choice’: she refrains from intentionally seeking out photographic subjects and instead turns her camera towards what is already around her – the sundial of her home. Through this disciplined practice, her work highlights the act of seeing as an autonomous undertaking. She does not seek out things in order to make a photograph, she makes photographs of what she happens to see.




Uta Barth, "... to walk without destination and to see only to see (Untitled 10.8)", 2010.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.




The Quote above is from a review of Uta Barth's exhibition at 1301PE in Los Angeles in May/June this year. And the title of that show was "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees". A similar approach to the act of seeing is evident in the title of the diptych above: "...to walk without destination and to see only to see".

Having said that, I will encourage you to look again at all these photos, while trying to forget what you have just read... - Try to see them only to see...

Debate in Bergens Tidende

Michael Johansson, "27m3", 3x3x3m, site specific installation, 2010.
Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum. Photo: michaeljohansson.com

Observant readers have already seen Michael Johansson's cubical sculpture in this post about the room Entré curated for the BGO1 exhibit at Bergen Art Museum.

I am showing it again now because I have been so busy debating the art public and criticism in the regional paper Bergens Tidende, that I have not had time to write any post since Thursday.  - And that debate revolves partially around this sculpture.

I have posted my text, Øystein Hauge's reply, and my reply to Øystein Hauge here. It is all in Norwegian, of course, so if you would like to comment on the debate, please feel free to do that in Norwegian.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet IV"

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet IV", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

I stopped by Bergen Kunsthall the other day to see the exhibit of four artists that is currently showing there. Among all the works that are included in that show, the one above, by Michael Krebber, gave me the most momentous moment of seeing "something".

But what was it that I saw?

For starters: Three primed canvases in a vertical pile that is halfway covered by a polka dot "hood", with a smear of black paint up towards the right.

This seemed quite meaningless to me. But knowing how rear it is, - that experience of not immediately connecting a visual uttering with some kind of perceived message, I was thrilled. And even more so when I found out that the work is titled "Miami City Ballet IV".

The connection between the covered up canvases and the title "Miami City Ballet IV" made no sense to me. I could find no literal connection, apart from thinking of other artists that have painted ballet, - Degas, for instance. But bringing Degas's impressions of dancers into my moment at Bergen Kunsthall, just seemed like an irrelevant distraction.

- Or maybe the three canvases could be perceived as stopped in moment, lined up and covered by a mutual piece of costume? No, the title "Miami City Ballet IV" left me with an even stronger notion that this work does not give any direct meaning in and of itself. (But the exciting experience of actually trying to find one, and feeling very close to finding it, was what made that moment at Bergen Kunsthall worthy of bringing on.)

What I found when I looked for meaning outside of the artwork itself, you can read below the next pictures. But that is more or less random information which ends up confirming a notion that this work is not a painting in any traditional singular sense, but a "painting" that is only concerned with the premises of "painting" as a general notion, and with the context that makes works like "Miami City Ballet IV" possible.

(If you are uncertain about the term "context", please look at this former post).

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet I", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet II", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet III", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Since then, I have found the paintings "Miami City Ballet" numbers I-III. They were included in a show Michael Krebber had at Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Berlin this summer.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet", Installation view, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, 2010

And this was how the paintings were installed: Three of them to the left, and then the covered up ones to the right. With a big box clad in fabric between.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet", 2010,
invitation card photo,  Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

I also found out where the artist got the title from: The entire show at Daniel Buchholz was titled "Miami City Ballet", and here is an excerpt from the invitation card written by Krebber:

"'Miami City Ballet" shall be the first stop in, or the downbeat of a series of ”new” exhibitions
following a lengthy period of inactivity. I took the photograph on the invitation card during a
Douglas Crimp lecture. It shows the photograph being projected—of Edward Villella—the ballet
dancer and later founder of the "MCB"—in the midst himself of holding a lecture. He shows his
arm; looks at it and—according to Crimp-comments on it. That he is “beholding” his arm is un-
knowable from my blurry photograph. More or less the same applies here, too.

[...] At this point we put in the picture of Paul Swan, the actor and dancer who once held the title: "Most Beautiful Man in the World"; Swan who appears and dances beside a curtain behind which he disappears for a costume change or some other preparation but doesn’t reappear except perhaps when no one can believe it any more.[...]

- So was this what Michael Krebber intended all along: Covering up the paintings ("painting") until no one can believe in them (believe in "it") any more?


***

On December 2, David Joselit will speak about "Painting Stripped Bare" at Bergen Kunsthall.

Nicholas Nixon, "The Brown Sisters"

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters, New Canaan, Connecticut. 1975

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters. 1988

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters. 1997

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters. 2007

These were the photos I was looking for yesterday, when I got distracted by Harry Callahan's "Chicago". I had never before seen that beautiful image of trees on the shore of Lake Michigan. And I had never seen "The Brown Sisters" either, - not until one of my former high school students showed them in class last year. - Thank you, Sofie!

I let my students browse the MoMA Photography Collection on the internet, and their task was to choose one or more pictures to present in class. Sofie gave a very inspired - and inspiring - talk about "The Brown Sisters", - about affection, connection, and differences. And about growing older.

I think these photographs fit well on a day when most people in the USA are getting ready to give thanks. They may inspire thankfullness about having a family, and perhaps feeling close and connected.

The time span that is so evident on these women's faces and bodies, forms a very important part of Nicholas Nixon's project (he has photographed the sisters every year from 1975 to 2008). Their age is accentuated, but the last two photos show that they are not ashamed of growing older. - Why should they be?

- And why do I even bring up this issue?
Well, maybe because I turned 40 a year and a half ago, and I do not like being targeted by all those who want to help me look younger...

I will rather listen to the actress Liv Ullmann who refuses to put on makeup that would hide her great life from showing on her face; I will look again at the portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe that tends to make me a little better able to love my own wrinkles; and I will give thanks to Nicholas Nixon for sharing the beauty of growing older.

Stian Ådlandsvik

"One Day All Sheds Will Be Useful", 2006

Installation view: "Historical Detour (Consequences of a Slip of the Tongue Awarding
Denmark the North Sea)", 2006, Galleri Erik Steen.

The photo of the shed in the field hangs on the wall right outside my office. And the pallet stands up against the wall below it. Even though, many people who come by have a hard time noticing the connection between them. - Can you see it?

There is such a romantic feel to that photo: The tough, but at the same time sheltering mountainside, and the dark clouds in contrast to the soft sunlight that shines on the patches of snow.

But what about the the boards that are missing from the shed's wall? - Well yes, exactly, the pallet has been made from them. And it has become a beautiful pallet, carrying years of rain, snow and sunshine on its surface.

As romantic as all this may seem, the work's title introduces a political perspective: "Historical Detour (Consequences of a Slip of the Tongue Awarding Denmark the North Sea)". ... What if?

- If his native country were not entitled to sell oil from the North Sea, would the artist Stian Ådlandsvik then be making pallets from all the sheds that are no longer in use ("One Day All Sheds Will Be Useful")? - Or maybe then all the sheds would still be in use, like they were about fifty years ago...





Documentation: S. Ådlandsvik and Lutz-Rainer Müller,
 "You only tell me you love me when you're drunk",
Hordaland Art Centre, 2010






Installation view: S. Ådlandsvik and Lutz-Rainer Müller,
 "You only tell me you love me when you're drunk",
Hordaland Art Centre, 2010







Installation view: S. Ådlandsvik and Lutz-Rainer Müller,
 "You only tell me you love me when you're drunk",
Hordaland Art Centre, 2010



Documentation  (from Hordaland Art Centre)

The other pictures document a work Stian Ådlandsvik recently executed together with Lutz-Rainer Müller in Bergen, Norway, and on the island Askøy, right outside of Bergen. It was titled You only tell me you love me when you're drunk and consisted of three parts: A model of a house which was to be demolished (bottom pictures); the house itself, altered according to the state the model was in after having travelled around the world; and sculptures made from the materials that were torn down.

More information about this project can be found at Hordaland Art Centre.

Entrée at BGO1




Michael Johansson, "27m3", 3x3x3m, site specific installation, 2010. Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum.
Photo: Vilde Andrea Brun.

 

These days, at Bergen Art Museum, there is a cube put together from stuff that has been collected at different artists' studios. It is the work of Michael Johansson, who has done similar sculptures in many other venues.

Michael Johansson, "27m3", 3x3x3m, site specific installation, 2010. Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum.
Photo: michaeljohansson.com

The dimensions of this cube fit very well into the room in which it is exhibited, - in such a way that it activates the space around itself, and seems to be of perfect size. Since the walls and the space around the sculpture are (almost) empty, it is as if lots of stuff that has been lying around, somehow magically imploded into a perfect cube...

And by transforming into art transportation boxes, monitors, file drawers, and light bulb packs etc., this sculpture pays homage to the tedious everyday studio effort that has been carried out to produce all the other works that are exhibited in the same collective show, - while also directing our attention behind the scenes of the art museum.

When I first saw this sculpture, I enjoyed its formal aspects very much: The composition of colors, shapes, and different sized objects. Does anybody else come to think of a Mondrian painting?

Gabriel Johann Kvendseth, "First we take Manhatta, Bow & Arrows", 2010. Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum.
Photo: Vilde Andrea Brun.

Then, quietly, in the corner of the room, these three arrows have been shot into the wall. Well, one is broken, and the back part of it lies on the floor. This subtle and delicate work by Gabriel Johann Kvendseth goes well together with the big and loud colored cubical sculpture. Sometimes a quiet whisper becomes more audible than high-pitched insistence...

(This one room in the exhibition BGO1 at Bergen Art Museum has been curated by Entrée)