OCA International — In Brief
Norwegian Artists and Curators Abroad
Selected International Venues

Biennials

Gardar Eide Einarsson participates in the Whitney Biennial 2008, NY, USA
Curators: Shamim Momim and Henriette Huldisch
Opened on 6 March and will run through 1 June, 2008

The curatorial team of Shamim Momim, Associate Curator at the Whitney, and Henriette Huldisch, Assistant Curator at the Whitney, has selected Gardar Eide Einarsson (b. 1976) among 80 other artists to participate in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. In the Whitney Biennial, Gardar Eide Einarsson is presenting Come and Take It (2008) and Black Suit Sic Semper Tyrannis (2008), in which the artist makes references to American History as a way to comment on authority and protection. The exhibition which runs through 1 June is noted as the Whitney's "signature exhibition as well as the most important survey of the state of contemporary art in the United States today." Other artists included within this year's Biennial include Rita Ackermann, Carol Bove, Coco Fusco, Gang Gang Dance, Rachael Harrison, Ellen Harvey, Mary Heilmann, Karen Kliminick, Louise Lawler, Spike Lee, Lucky Dragons, Corey McCorkle, Rodney McMillan, Seth Price, Frances Starck, Mungo Thomson, James Welling, among others.

A full schedule of events is available at Whitney's webpage.
Read NY Times' article on the biennial here.

Participation of aiPotu, Lene Berg, Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl and Pushwagner and special projects by Vibeke Tandberg and Matias Faldbakken, in the 16th Biennale of Sydney, Australia.
Curator: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
Open: 18 June–7 September, 2008
Press Preview: Tuesday, 17 June

The 2008 Biennale of Sydney as curated by its Artistic Director, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev entitled Revolutions — Forms that Turn will include a presentation of approximately 80 artists from 1913 to today. According to Christov-Bakargiev, the "exhibition will navigate in different ways artists have revolutionized contemporary art." The Norwegian duo aiPotu will contribute to the Sydney Biennale with two separate works, both related to their ongoing Island Tour. The first work, entitled If you don't like the weather — wait 15 minutes, is an installation to be shown inside the Museum for Contemporary Art. The second work is a maritime construction site at the Cockatoo Island, in the Sydney Harbour. Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl will present the project When the Private Become Public, an investigation on the private vs. the public realm. In the words of the artist the project "brings three characters (an Aboriginal woman, an African woman and a woman of western descent) and will together create a triangle linkage of their individuality, different cultures, and other experiences that are embedded in them. These women are to translate the changes and turn within the private realm and will enact them into performance that will be shot in the desert. The final piece will be a film/sound installation". Pushwagner will show Klaxton II, 2000; Manhattan, 2004–2006, the pictorial novel Soft City, 1968–1976 and the animation Soft City, 2006-2008. Lene Berg will present a new project consisting of a video and a series of images and objects entitled The Drowned One. Having the first photographic images of a human being (The Drowned One by Hippolyte Bayard) as its point of departure, The Drowned One deals with photographic paradoxes. The work will be shown on Cockatoo Island outside Sydney Harbour and in October, the project will be presented at Fotogalleriet in Oslo.

Although included in the previous Sydney biennial, the artistic director has also invited artists Vibeke Tandberg and Matias Faldbakken to create special projects in conjunction with the formal exhibition. Vibeke Tandberg will be showing the video Old Man Going Up and Down a Staircase where the pregnant artist comes down the stairs dressed as an old man. Matias Faldbakken will present a slide show as a continuation of his recent image series Untitled (Young is Better Than Old), 2008. The images are composed by overlapping words rendered with black isolation tape on canvas, paper or directly onto the wall. In such a manner, the text becomes unreadable and the message is obscured. According to the artist, this way of working suppresses language in favor of a mute and negating visual gesture. The Sydney Biennial will also showcase important historical works from the collection of Erling Neby in Oslo. The biennial takes place in various venues and sites throughout Sydney, and has been supported with a grant from OCA's International Support Programme. A portion of this grant is provided by 03–funding*. For further developing information, please refer to Biennale of Sydney, or contact info@oca.no.
You can preview artworks, texts and links in the 2008 Biennale of Sydney Online Venue.

Participation of Knut Åsdam, Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl and Helen & Hard Architects in Manifesta 7
Trentino — Südtirol/Alto Adige, Italy
Curators: Adam Budak, Anselm Franke/Hila Peleg and Raqs Media Collective
Open: 19 July to 2 November, 2008
Professional preview: July 17 and Friday July 18 from 11:00 to 19:00
Press Conference and the official opening: July 19

Manifesta 7 will take place in a region linking the cities of Franzenfeste/Fortezza, Bozen/Bolzano, Trento and Rovereto. Three curatorial teams have been selected to realize the project — Raqs Media Collective in Bolzano, Anselm Franke and Hila Peleg in Trento, and Adam Budak in Rovereto. The curators will collaborate on the fourth venue within the fortress of Fortezza. From Manifesta's press release: "Manifesta 7 will open up the region and, with its wide variety of urban and cultural networks, investigate, develop, and reflect upon new aspects of contemporary art within a European context. In the process, it will strive to confront a local, national and international audience with new forms of artistic expression and proposals for dealing with the issue of art in public spaces."

Please refer to www.manifesta7.it for further information and press accreditation.

Solo Exhibitions and Projects

Camilla Løw at Dundee Contemporary Arts
Curated by DCA's Deputy Director Judith Winter
1 February–31 March, 2008

Straight Letters marks the first solo exhibition by the Norwegian artist Camilla Løw which opened at Dundee Contemporary Arts in Scotland in February 2008. From Straight Letters' press release: "Løw's sculptures transcend traditional modes of display — works are clustered, stacked, suspended or leant against the wall. They combine a seemingly casual presentation with refined, tightly crafted and considered use of colour, surface and form. Camilla's playful yet rigorous response to the legacies of Constructivism and Minimalism make for enigmatic geometric riddles that transform the DCA space."

Read review from Scotsman.com here.

Per Blarclay, Chambres d'huile at Centre de Création Contemporaine, Tours, France
Curated by Alain Julien-Laferrière, director of the Centre de Création Contemporaine
8 March–1 June, 2008

Per Barclay's exhibition at Centre de Création Contemporaine focus on a specific aspect of his work: photographs of spaces with a "liquid floor". Since the late 80's, the artist has been developing ephemeral in situ installations in which he covers the floors of enclosed spaces with black oil, water, wine or blood. The process creates mirroring or "reflecting" surfaces, which double the image of the location while at the same time opening it to the breathtaking depth of a virtual elsewhere. The exhibition will gather 15 large photographs, from the first realized in 1989 to the more recent ones, realized in Chinon at the CCC's invitation (2006) and at the Fondation Merz (2007). The exhibition will also be shown at the Fondation Merz in Turin, Italy from July to October, 2008.

P.S.1/MoMA will host a solo project by Børre Sæthre scheduled to open in NYC in October 2008. The exhibition curated by Lia Gangitano, Curatorial Advisor to P.S.1/MoMA, will include the artist's various installations created specifically for his recent show under the title For Someone Who Nearly Died but Survived at the Bergen Kunsthall, Norway that evoke hybrid spaces reflecting upon the artist's own fantasies and confessions rendered in morphed interiors.

Karl Ingar Røys participates in a solo project entitled Would-be Immigrants Must Watch Kiss Video at the Het Wilde Weten in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The exhibition curated by Kim Bouvy opened on 17 January and will run through 15 April, 2008. The artist is invited by Kim Bouvy from Het Wilde Weten to discuss the initiative of the Dutch Immigrant Authorities to use video-tests in order to implement common cultural reference points for people who wish to settle in Holland. This project is a continuation of Røys' earlier work entitled Erna's Video whereby the artist refers to the documentary format to focus on how media is politically used by Norwegian politicians with the purpose to dissuade asylum seekers from entering into the country.

Olav Christopher Jenssen, At times at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin
30 March–8 June, 2008
Curated by Dr. Katja Blomberg, Artistic director of Haus am Waldsee
For his first solo show in Berlin, Olav Christopher Jenssen will be showing the full spectrum of his works: large scale paintings, small "watercolours, drawings, and installations made of aluminium, clay and plaster. Working with layers, Jenssen builds images along abstract planar structures, working with an introspective, abstract network of thought".

Trine Lise Nedreaas' solo exhibition Tomorrow Holds The Promise opened at the Kunstverein Schwerin on 12 March and will run through 20 April. Curated by Dr. Roeder, from the Staatliches Museum Schwerin in collaboration with the artist, the exhibition includes drawings and video works by Nedreaas.

Selected Group Exhibitions

Sissel Tolaas and Verdensteatret have been invited to exhibit within Synthetic Times — Media Art China 2008, a Cultural Olympics Project at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The exhibition curated by the NY based media curator, Zhang Ga, is organized around four distinctive yet interrelated themes that testify to the incessant and obsessive pursuit of an ideal world through artistic intervention into media and communication technologies as well as bio-cultural spheres. Sissel Tolaas who is one of the few artists currently working with smell, creates installations that explore real scents, questioning certain cultural prejudices. For Synthetic Times she will contribute with the project Fear 9, in which she collects and displays the smell of 9 different men who have nothing in common but the fear of body contact. The Norwegian collective Verdensteatret will present the installation The Telling Orchestra, "where images, sculptures, sound and video are deeply integrated into each other to form an audio-visual-spatial". The exhibition will include approximately 50 media works and is scheduled from 9 June through 3 July, as one of the more important cultural events leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing. The project is supported by 03–funding*.

Unni Gjertsen was invited by Corinne Diserens, Director at MUSEION — Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Bolzano, and OCA IVP visitor in November last year, to select films by Mai Zetterling for the opening exhibition of MUSEION's new building. The show, entitled Peripheral Look and Collective Body will open on 24 May and close on 21 September, 2008. Peripheral Look and Collective Body discusses the question of the collective bodies in contemporary visual art considering the tight relationship with architecture and performance — dance, in particular.

Stefan Schröder participates in Über Tage_07, which is a site specific project, reflecting urban landscape development and site specific interventions after several decades of coalmining activities in the former East-German region of Sachsen. The project opened 1 September, 2007, and will expand into the summer of 2008. The project is curated by Susanne Altmann.

Gardar Eide Einarsson participates in the exhibition Come, come, come into my world curated by Andrew Renton that runs from 16 November, 2007 through 31 August, 2008 at the Ellipse Foundation Contemporary Art Collection in Cascais in Portugal. The show is a selection of unseen works and new acquisitions from the Ellipse Foundation. Other participating artists are: Aleksandra Mir, Anri Sala, Dash Snow, Douglas Gordon, Erwin Wurm, Francis Alÿs, Franz West, Gabriel Orozco, Glenn Ligon, Haim Steinbach, Hamish Fulton, Jack Pierson, João Onofre, João Pedro Vale, John Bock, John Stezaker, Joseph Kosuth, Jimmie Durham, Mike Kelley, Miroslaw Balka, Muntean & Rosenblum, Olafur Eliasson, Raymond Pettibon, Rodney Graham and Thomas Schütte.

Ann Lislegaard was invited by curator John Zeppetelli to participate in the exhibition Re-Enactments at the DHC/Art Foundation for contemporary Art, in Montreal. Re-Enactments proposes film and spectacle imagery as a point of departure for a critical renewed aesthetic and political experience. The show presents works which re-act films, media spectacles, popular culture or even private moments of our daily routine. Ann Lislegaard contributes with the installation I-you-later-there that flightily reacts moments of daily life. The exhibition that opened on 22 February will run until 25 May, 2008.

At the Camden Arts Centre, from 31 March to 6 April 2008, Anne Karin Dolven will be screening Tilts only (his shirt), a mute 16 mm film projection. Through optical distortions, a flimsy surface of a man's shirts becomes at once familiar and strange, intimate and distance, creating and exploring a sense of longing.

Between 26 March and 19 April 2008, Open Space — Zentrum für Kunstprojekte is showing On Xenophobia Redux, curated by Anne Brit Rage and David Rych. The xeno.no project aims to engage as an online platform and database for contemporary cultural reflection on xenophobic tendencies, understood here as a phenomenon that takes on different faces, agendas and forms of establishment. With a growing list of participating artists, the site will function as an online database of theory and visual and time-based art. During the program at Open Space, a presentation of the project will take place, as well as series of lectures and workshops.

Independent Residencies and Research Abroad

Invited by Alix Dionot-Morani, Head of Production and Coordination, Andreas Siqueland (1973) (aiPotu) was selected as one of ten candidates out of 260 to participate at the Pavilion Residency Program at Palais de Tokyo, Paris. The program is a crossing between a residency program and an advanced visual arts course. The 8 months residency includes travels to Tokyo and Corsica and three exhibitions, among them Pavllion 7, at Palais the Tokyo between 12 and 16 March, 2008 and Echo at the Transpalette in Bourges, France opening in 13 June, 2008. The residency is taking place between November, 2007 and June, 2008.

Marius Notvik (1973) was invited by Phonsak La-or, Vice-Chairman, The Land Foundation, in Chiang Mai, Thailand to participate in The Land Foundation's One Year Project #2 residency programme. From The land Foundation press release: "The land foundation is a platform of and for social engagement, experimental alternative education at the intersection of debate, and holistic learning." The residency will take place between January and April, 2008. The project is supported by 03–funding*.

Projects in Norway

Elmgreen & Dragset's opera L'amour de loin (Love from afar) will be the opening event of this year's Bergen International Festival. L'amour de loin is said to be a step for opera in the new millennium, a fascinating work with multiple points for interpretations. The Norwegian-Swedish visual artist duo Ingrid Book and Carina Hedén are the Festival Artists 2008. Bergen Kunsthall will exhibit Books and Hedén's photographs documentation of the Rena Military Base. Bergen International Festival, which takes place between 21 May and 4 June, 2008 will showcase 160 art events in all its guises: music, literature, theatre, dance, and visual art from the Nordic and Baltic countries. For tickets and more information, please visit the Bergen International Festival website.

Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) is curated by Taru Elfving and Rickard Borgström, and will open 14 June and run through 7 September, 2008. This year's festival will have an emphasis on site-specificity and commissioned works, aiming to create a dialogue around the questions of sustainable future and expanded community. The festival will also present an open call video program, co-curated with Maria Bustnes.

31 March, 2008

*03–funding: The purpose of the 03-funds as allocated by the MFA to OCA is to further develop cooperation and professional networking between OCA and the constituency of artists, independent cultural producers, and organizations that are located in designated countries or associated with 03-countries. This includes but is not limited to "professional research visits by cultural producers, artists, and curators", "short-term residencies for cultural producers and artists", "the development of seminars, conferences, art projects, workshops, etc. that focus on the further development of professional exchange and networking between and among countries", "project development and "pilot projects" on an international scale."