Office for Contemporary Art Norway

Morten Krohg will participate in a residency in December 2012 at Raw Material Company in Dakar. During his visit the artist will conduct research on Senegalese contemporary art and its historical contexts within the country’s social and political movements. He will meet with professors at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et de la Culture and Cheikh Anta Diop University and visit major museums and cultural sites in Dakar. Throughout the residency, Krohg will maintain a dialogue with artist Issa Samb in which they will explore their shared engagement with radical activist art strategies developed in their respective practices during the 1960s and 1970s in the seemingly opposing contexts of Senegal and Norway. On 7 December, Krohg and Samb will engage in a collaborative lecture and performance at Issa Samb's studio in Dakar.
The residency is supported by O3–funds* and is part of a series of programme activities OCA is developing in relation to art, society and politics in contemporary Africa, leading up to the solo exhibition by the Senegalese artist Issa Samb, which will open in winter 2013 in OCA’s public space. 

The Raw Residency is part of the residential programme of Raw Material Company in Dakar. It is directed towards artists, architects, academics, curators and critical writers, and facilitates production of new works that provide a visual and critical discourse on social and political issues. The residency programme is strongly attached to community engagement as a mean to reintegrate art practice as a defining part of society. The overall aim of the residency programme is to sustain a continuous presentation of and a confrontation with African and Africa-related artistic practices.

About the artist
Morten Krohg is a Norwegian artist who since the 1960s has demonstrated a radical political awareness through his art. He was part of the Norwegian 1960s avant-garde scene, and became an important figure in the radical leftist movements of the 1970s as a member of the artists' collective Gras (1969–74). His work encompasses photography, installation and painting. In addition to his own artistic practice, Krohg has been vital to the democratisation of Norwegian art institutions and a champion of artists’ rights throughout his career. He served as chairman of Kunstnernes Hus (1966–69), acted as director of Vestlandets Kunstakademi in Bergen for two terms (1973–79 and 1986–91) and was professor at the Department of Aesthetics at the Oslo University College (1997–2007).

*About O3–funds
Morten Krohg's residency at Raw Material Company is supported by O3–funds as underwritten by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for enhancing collaboration in the contemporary art field with art professionals in countries designated by the MFA. The purpose of the O3–funds as allocated to OCA is to contribute to the development of the work of artists, independent cultural producers and organisations located in designated 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', 'seminars, conferences, art projects, workshops that focus on the further development of professional exchange and networking between and among countries', and 'project development on an international scale'.

OCA announces the release of the publication The State of Things, a collection of essays by philosophers, activists and art theorists addressing the standpoint of the day and its artistic conjuncture. The essays, written by Jacques Rancière, Leo Bersani, Vandana Shiva, Jan Egeland, Fawaz Gerges, Eyal Weizman, Judith Butler, Franco Berardi, Saskia Sassen and TJ Clark, offer historical perspectives on issues such as human rights, urban development and peacemaking, and study recent responses to these conditions, through the creation of new modes of subjectivity and the adoption of direct action that can even take the form of revolts and revolutions.

The essays are based on lectures delivered by the authors as part of Norway’s official representation in the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2011, within the programme ‘The State of Things’. These lectures, organised throughout the duration of the Biennale at key public institutions in Venice such as Università Iuav di Venezia, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and Fondazione Querini Stampalia, attempted to think through the world’s current situation and, simultaneously, explore alternative models for national representation within the Biennale, focusing on discourse production, critical thought and pedagogy.

The State of Things is edited by Marta Kuzma, Peter Osborne and Pablo Lafuente, curators of ‘The State of Things’ programme. The ten essays are accompanied by an afterword by Angela Vettese, director of the Visual Art Department of the Faculty of Design and Arts at Università Iuav di Venezia.

The State of Things is publication no 14 in the ongoing Office fro Contemporary Art Norway's Verksted series. It is published by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway and Koenig Books, in association with the Università Iuav di Venezia’s ‘Venice Biennale Study Group – Fare Mostre’ Research Programme, and with the support of Fritt Ord. It is available in bookstores internationally, directly from OCA or the Koenig Books website.

About Norway's official representation at the 54th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
‘The State of Things’ was one of two programmes making up Norway’s official representation at the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale. It consisted in a series of public lectures held throughout the Biennale period, reflecting upon themes such as diversity, the environment, peace-making, human rights, capital, migration, asylum, Europe, aesthetics and revolution. Each presentation tackled the 'state of things' today, drawing from the speakers' fields of activity and research, and from what they consider the intellectual and political priorities of today.

The second programme, ‘Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS’, was an MA course delivered by Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard, invited for the occasion as Guest Professor for the Graduate Programme of Visual Arts at the Faculty of Design and Arts, Università Iuav di Venezia. The programme looked at the history and present of the AIDS crisis and its reflection within contemporary art and discourse, and included Leo Bersani as a Guest Lecturer.

For more information on the book, please contact Antonio Cataldo, OCA’s Senior Programme Coordinator.

'Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation' is a project co-organised by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, Italy, as the official Norwegian representation at the 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2013. The project revolves around emancipation as an issue always vexed with contradiction – between the realm of freedom and the consequences of the isolation that often accompanies pursuing a qualitatively different, ‘alternative’ life. In his Essay on Liberation, Herbert Marcuse noted that this striving toward what is essentially a ‘new sensibility’ involves a psychedelic, narcotic release from the rationality of an established system, as well as from the rationality that attempts to change that system. This new sensibility, which resides in the gap between the confines of the existing order and those of true liberation, might lead to a radical transformation – and in this transformation art serves as a technique through which to reconstruct reality from its illusion, its imitation, even its harmony, towards a reality not yet given, still to be realised. 

This sensibility will be echoed in a new work by Lene Berg that will be integrated within a larger exhibition of works by Edvard Munch. This work, titled Ung Løs Gris (Dirty Young Loose, 2013), is a 25-minute film that concentrates on three stereotypical characters who are interrogated about their roles as victims and/or perpetrators in a complex situation. The film explores the interpretation of human behaviour based on preconceived concepts and established norms. Just like the exhibition as a whole, the film presents the deconstruction of an original scene which functions as a catalyst to enact a revision of emancipatory politics, gender struggle and internal conflict.

More about the exhibition
The impulse to operate in the margins – on the outside trying to break in or on the inside redefining the context – is one of the key driving forces in the history of art, and is also at the centre of 'Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation'. The exhibition, which will take place at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa’s gallery at Piazza San Marco, will bring together works from the collection of the Munch Museum in Oslo with a new film by Norwegian artist Lene Berg, in order to explore Edvard Munch’s position within and response to the age of emancipation in which he lived, where sexual norms and traditional gender roles were challenged amid new psychological theories of sex and politics and a struggle for women’s equality. Challenged by social developments and psycho-emotional expression, Munch faced the alienation that characterised a society (the Kristiania Bohemia) bidding for emancipation but trapped in ‘reality’, struggling between two options: assimilating shared values, or going beyond them in order to construct a new frame for perception. As Munch’s illustrations for Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal warned, sex might bring death. 

Munch’s emphatic treatment of these themes prior to 1902, before entering the asylum for the first time, reflected an internal ambiguity and anguish. Munch described his asylum period as an ‘eternal civil war’, after which, from 1908, his work moved to a more distanced treatment of subjects, in social caricatures in which he offers an ironic critique of an increasingly capitalist and permissive society. In Social Studies: Cause and Effect, made shortly after, Munch also reflected upon the conditions of artistic production and its reception, via patronage, sales, criticism and public opinion, opening new dimensions for his work, from a psychological perspective into social and historical realms.

The ‘pile of humanity’ or ‘human mountain’, a recurrent motif in Munch’s work since the early 1890s, is a pivotal element for 'Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation', in its reflection on an emancipatory drive that might conclude in tragedy. While some of the sketches, illustrations, drawings and lithographs of the versions portray the human mountain as a platform for what looks like a move towards true liberation, others show a sarcophagus at the mountain’s pinnacle – an allegory that reflects Munch’s deep ambivalence towards the new times, their promises and their possibilities, and that expresses the dilemma of emancipation.

The project is curated by Marta Kuzma, Director, OCA, Angela Vettese, President, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and Pablo Lafuente, Associate Curator, OCA.This project is produced and organised by OCA together with Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and in cooperation with the Munch Museum, Oslo. Lene Berg’s film is produced by Helga Fjordholm, Studio Fjordholm AS, and made possible with the additional support of NFI, the Norwegian Film Institute/Åse Meyer, Norsk Kulturråd/Arts Council Norway and Fond for Lyd og Bilde/Audio and Visual Fund.

For further information on this project, please contact Antonio Cataldo, OCA’s Senior Programme Coordinator.

As a result of Erlend Hammer’s three-month curatorial residency in New York, ISCP presents ‘If You Want it You Can Get it For the Rest of Your Life. (Truth is What Works.)’. The exhibition presents a selection of works from artists that have a ‘studio-based practice’, representing what the curator designates as ‘an artistic knowledge that develops intuitively over time, and to some extent is willfully incommunicable’. The exhibition space becomes Hammer’s studio in the sense that he ‘experiments with various constellations of artists in a continuous attempt to put together exhibitions that freely generate ideas that are not preconceptions about the individual artists' works. Meaning is discovered rather than constructed.' Since September 2012, a sculpture in the shape of a chair by artist Matthew Antezzo has been installed in Hammer's studio space at ISCP. Intended by the artist as a challenge that the curator should spend most of his time outside the studio exploring New York, the work now enters into a conversation with other works including Knut Henrik Henriksen's wall-based wooden sculpture and Lars Monrad Vaage's series of abstract paintings that simultaneously attempt to be portraits and grasp the completeness of reality. In Mai Hofstad Gunnes's 16mm film Bike and Bolex the artist explores the idea of multiple perspectives and subjectivities as seen through the lenses of five women filming each other with Bolex cameras while bicycling.  

For press inquiries and more information on the exhibition, please contact Kari Conte, Director of Programs and Exhibitions, ISCP New York.

About the curator
Erlend Hammer (b.1978 in Oslo, Norway, lives and works in Moss, Norway) is an editor and curator. He holds degrees in Art History from the University of Bergen (2005) and a Creative Curating degree from the Art Academy of Bergen (2008). His Samlede kunstkritikker 2005–2008 (Collected Art Criticism 2005–2008) was published by Ctrl+Z in 2009. In 2011 he became Assistant Editor of Kunstkritikk – Nordic Art Review, and held the position of Acting Chief Editor until July 2012. He writes monthly commentary for the daily newspaper Dagbladet and his latest curated project was Mai Hofstad Gunnes's solo exhibition 'Baby Snakes Hatching. Ruins. Ruins' at UKS – Unge Kunstneres Samfunn in May 2012.

About OCA’s residency at ISCP New York City
Erlend Hammer holds a fellowship from OCA as part of its participation in the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. In collaboration with the Royal Norwegian Consulate in New York, OCA offers two studio grants – one for a Norwegian artist and one for a Norwegian curator – at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP). The artist residency has a duration of one year, from September 2012 to August 2013, and the curatorial residency has a duration of 3 months, from September to November 2012. The participation of Ane Graff, Mai Hofstad Gunnes, Knut Henrik Henriksen, Kristian Skylstad, Lars Monrad Vaage and Øystein Aasan in 'If You Want it You Can Get it For the Rest of Your Life. (Truth is What Works.)' is supported by OCA's International Support Programme.

Office for Contemporary Art Norway
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is a foundation created by The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in autumn 2001. The main aim of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway is to develop collaborations in contemporary art between Norway and the international art scene. The Office for Contemporary Art Norway aims to become a key contributor to the discourses of contemporary art.

OCA holds a public meeting at its premises in Nedre gate 7 on Tuesday, 20 November at 19:00 in an effort to openly explore the official Norwegian representation at the Venice Biennale and its possible future model with the aim to invite public views from those within the professional art community. Within such an autonomous platform, the meeting hopes to address the real needs for such a presentation in the future in an effort to build a constructive discussion as to how to address recurrent issues that relate to this forum in the past. Should Norway secure an earmarked allocation for the Venice Biennale so that this is visible both nationally and internationally? What is the optimal level of such an allocation to meet the minimum ambitions for such a project within the frame of the Venice Biennale today? Should OCA be the central authority in the development of the official Norwegian representation in the Venice Biennale? Should KUD form a council of professionals as an advisory body – even international in scope to advise on these matters? These and other issues are hoped to be addressed under the following agenda*.

AGENDA
I. Introduction
Gro Bonesmo, Chair of the Board, OCA

II. OCA and the history of the Venice Biennale since 2003
Marta Kuzma, Director, OCA

III. Short Presentations
NBK
Ebba Moi, Member of the Board, NBK

UKS
Marianne Hurum, Chair of the Board, UKS

Arts Council Norway
Geir Harald Samuelsen, Chair, Visual Arts, Arts Council Norway

On participating in the Nordic Pavilion in the 1999 Venice Biennale
Knut Åsdam, Artist

IV. Open discussion and response

V. Closing remarks and conclusions

Refreshments

MODERATORS
Velaug Bollingmo, Senior Advisor, Arts Council Norway
Sverre Gullesen, Chair of the Board, Kunstnernes Hus

*Please notice that the meeting will be held mainly in Norwegian.

Amund Sjølie Sveen and Elin Øyen Vister are invited to participate in 'Art Nord – Performance and Concerts' on Wednesday, 21 November 2012 at 18:30 at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In association with the traveling sound art exhibition 'HORIZONIC' on view from 15 November to 14 December 2012 at the École Supérieure d'Arts & Médias de Caen/Cherbourg, France, the Palais de Tokyo invited the exhibition's curator Ásdís Ólafsdóttir to produce a parallel event with the participants. According to Ólafsdóttir, the project allows 'Nordic artists to share their experience of isolated territories, open expanses and a scattered population, rediscovering space through their personal perception of soundscapes and original sound experiments'. Sjølie Sveen will present the performance Deconstructing Ikea, where he plays with five Ikea dishes, breaking them and thus creating new sounds and a new visual experience. Øyen Vister will, together with musicians from the group WeDoMagic (Inga Grytås Byrkjeland, Ola Høyer and Kristine Tjøgersen), perform an improvised concert in free dialogue with sounds from the Røst archipelago in Northern Norway recorded by Øyen Vister.

Members of the curatorial collective Rakett, Åse Løvgren and Karolin Tampere, hold a panel discussion on Friday, 23 November at 18:00 titled 'Radical Organizations' in collaboration with Palais de Tokyo's curator Hélène Meisel for the launch of the Pavillon Fanzine A Collection of Scores. Part of the issue#16 of the magazine PALAIS, A Collection of Scores is directed by Egija Inzule and realised by the residents of the Pavillon programme as a result of their journey in Norway during the summer of 2012. According to Rakett this panel proposes an expansion of its ongoing survey of alternative structures of art, born of the hybridization of different models, such as production units attached to or detached from institutions, 'curatorial offices' or curatorial collectives, editions agencies, mobile residencies and spontaneous archives. Other participants in the panel discussion include Luba Kuzovnikova, Stefan Shankland and Guillaume Désanges.

For press enquiries and more information on these events, please contact Vanessa Julliard, head of communication, Palais de Tokyo.

About the artists
Amund Sjølie Sveen (b.1973 in Vadsø, Norway, lives and works in Svartskog, Norway) is a percussionist, composer, performance and sound artist. He holds an MA in solo percussion from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is a member of the Norwegian music theater collective Ning and the contemporary folk music group Slagr. He is regularly performing, playing, collaborating and exhibiting in Norway and abroad.

Elin Øyen Vister (b.1976 in Oslo, Norway, lives and works in Røst, Bergen and Oslo, Norway) is a sound artist, composer and DJ. She has completed the two year joint study MA programme Nordic Sound Art. Øyen Vister uses field recordings as the core of her artistic practice and creates intimate sound installations, multichannel works and record releases. She explores the acoustic realities of urban and natural spaces around the world. Biological diversity and dissapearance is often underlying topics, such as in her ongoing project 'Soundscape Røst'.

Rakett is a collaboration between the artists/curators Åse Løvgren (b.1975 in Bodø, Norway, lives and works in Bergen, Norway) and Karolin Tampere (b.1978 in Tallin, Estonia, lives and works in Bergen) focusing on creating temporary platforms for collaborative, interdisciplinary productions. Implicitly and explicitly, their projects touch on a range of questions around (co)authorship, (im)material or ephemeral production, the role of the artist and the curator, and the potential of mobile and changeable platforms in the infrastructure for art.

OCA Support
Amund Sjølie Sveen, Elin Øyen Vister and Rakett's projects at Palais de Tokyo are supported by OCA's International Support Programme.

Office for Contemporary Art Norway
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is a foundation created by The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in autumn 2001. The main aim of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway is to develop collaborations in contemporary art between Norway and the international art scene. The Office for Contemporary Art Norway aims to become a key contributor to the discourses of contemporary art.

In Spring 2012, Norway’s Ministry of Culture (KUD) released the White Paper #23 on Visual Arts, which laid out, in Chapter 7 under point 7.2.3. Conclusion and evaluation of actions:

OCA was founded as an independent professional organ with a mandate to evaluate what would be more beneficial in the international process of exchange in the visual field. With increased globalisation it is important to have an organisation like OCA to attend to and place the Norwegian art world on the international scene. The registration of a rise in applications for international participation for Kulturrådet (Arts Council Norway) may be a signal pointing to the fact that OCA does not have enough funding.
The proposed action point leading out of this conclusion reads:
The Ministry of Culture will assess the need for strengthening OCA’s international activities in connection with the budget.

On 8 October, the proposed national budget for 2013 was released, whereby KUD stated that they had attained ‘the best cultural budget ever’, claiming they ‘are about to reach their goal that was set with “The Culture Lift” (Kulturløftet) in 2004 and 2009, where one of the goals was that 1% of the state budget should be allocated to culture by the year 2014’. Although the White Paper #23 on Visual Arts set out a frame for actions to be considered in terms of the formulation of a future cultural policy and strengthening of budget in relation to internationalisation, OCA was overlooked in terms of possible increases for 2013 (other than for an adjustment according to consumer price index).

The central issue of this public call is to note that OCA, as organiser and commissioner for the official Norwegian representation at La Biennale di Venezia, has expressed within the past three annual budget applications a need for KUD to dedicate an earmarked and increased budget toward Norway’s official representation within La Biennale di Venezia (Visual Arts section). (These requests incorporated into OCA’s annual budget application were in the amounts of 800.000 NOK for the 2009 edition, 3.88 million NOK for the 2011 edition, and 1 million NOK for the 2013 edition – increase requests that were not granted). With the absence of a budget increase across the past three years, OCA has effectively faced a deficit in order to meet the challenges of organising such a project without constructive negotiations on how to meet these challenges in the future. In numerous past meetings, OCA has also expressed the need for a comprehensive evaluation to be conducted in relation to the financial and structural support for the official Norwegian representation at La Biennale di Venezia to reflect the dramatic changes that have affected the costs and realities of mounting an exhibition of contemporary art within the context of the Biennale, especially within the rotation format.

On the same day of the announcement of the national budget, OCA held a meeting of Norwegian art professionals to discuss the pressing issues relating to Norway’s official representation in Venice – for 2013 and into the future. The conclusion reached by the group was to host a public meeting at OCA’s premises for this topic to be taken publicly to bring the following questions and issues to the forefront:

– The optimal formulation of a budget for the official Norwegian representation at La Biennale di Venezia
– How is this budget reviewed, earmarked, and allocated by KUD?
– What is the optimal budget, both with the Nordic pavilion available and/or without the Nordic pavilion?
– Why both ministries KUD and UD do not cooperate on the funding of the official Norwegian representation at La Biennale di Venezia?
­– What has the role of Arts Council Norway been in the past as supplemental in funding the official representation?
– Should OCA be the central authority in the construction of the official Norwegian representation in Venice?
– Should OCA be the commissioner to hire the curator for the official representation?
– Should KUD form a council of professionals as an advisory body – even international in scope to advise KUD on such matter?
– Are there alternative optimal formats?
– Should the Nordic cooperation continue into the future after the conclusion of the agreement for the rotational model adopted for the years 2011–2015?

OCA holds this public meeting at its premises in Nedre gate 7 on Tuesday, 20 November, at 19:00 in an effort to openly explore these points in a discussion and debate with the aim to elicit public views from those within the professional art community and as a way to address Norway’s official representation at La Biennale di Venezia for the future as an autonomous platform. In doing so, the meeting hopes to address the real needs of this forum away from the heated political debates around OCA as an institution.

This public meeting was called after a session at OCA to discuss the problems and polemics of this situation with members of the arts community that included among others:

Birgit Bærøe, Head of Section, Visual Arts, Arts Council Norway
Ina Blom, Critic, Curator and Professor in Art History, University of Oslo (UiO)
Velaug Bollingmo, Senior Advisor, Arts Council Norway, part of founding of OCA
Marianne Hurum, Chair of Board, Unge Kunstneres Samfund (UKS)
Marta Kuzma, Director, OCA
Jørn Mortensen, Dean, Visual Arts, Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO), former Associate Director, OCA
Geir Harald Samuelsen, Chair, Visual Arts, Arts Council Norway

For more information related to the meeting please contact OCA’s Anne Charlotte Hauen, Administrative Associate or Maria Moseng, Press Officer.

16.10.2012