4. april 2014
The Positive Void
Azar Alsharif, Gardar Eide Einarsson and Matias Faldbakken, Ida Ekblad, Mohamed Ali Fadlabi, FRANK, Kim André Hagen, Lars Laumann, Lotte Konow Lund, Jon Benjamin Tallerås, Fredrik Værslev
To celebrate Morten Krohg’s retrospective and his work with the GRAS group, Kunsthall Oslo is pleased to announce The Positive Void, a series of ten new screenprint commissions from Norwegian artists. The prints are being produced at Fellesverkstedet, and the project will be launched with a temporary flyposted exhibition on the side wall of Møllergata 37 in central Oslo (alongside the shop Flirt – on the pedestrian path between Møllergata and Grubbegata). There will be an open air reception from 7-7.30pm on Friday 4th April, all welcome, refreshments will be served.
The title of the project, ‘The Positive Void’, is taken from Katanyi and Vaneigem’s 1961 Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism, Section Six, ‘All space is already occupied by the enemy…’. The title also describes the process of screenprinting, in which a void on the screen produces a positive imprint.
Print sales:
Images of the prints will be available to view on the Kunsthall Oslo website from 4th April. The edition is 23; most of the prints are 900x640mm. Two sets of the edition are reserved by Kunsthall Oslo for archiving and future exhibition. One set will be pasted up outdoors.
A limited number of prints (three of each artists’ edition, 30 in total, numbered and signed or stamped) will be available for sale from Kunsthall Oslo at the fixed price of 800kr per print. To reserve a print at this price, limited to one print per person, send an email to thepositivevoid@kunsthalloslo.no with ‘reservation’ as the subject, including the name of the artist and your name and contact information, any time after kl12 noon on Friday 4th April. We will then reserve prints according to the order in which we receive email reservations, until all 30 prints have been spoken for (this may take days or years; we will post a note on our website when or if we have no more available. Prints may still be available from the artists themselves, but not necessarily at this fixed price). If you are interested in more than one artist’s work, please list all of the artists’ names in order of preference; we will then reserve the first available work. If the print you wish to reserve is available we will contact you to arrange payment, and collection or postage at cost. All 30 prints we have are now reserved, but prints may still be still be available from the artists themselves.
One complete set of all ten prints will also be auctioned online later in April. This will likely be the only way to acquire the complete set of prints. For advance information on the auction, send an email to thepositivevoid@kunsthalloslo.no with ‘auction’ as the subject or call Kunsthall Oslo +47 24047202.
All remaining copies of the edition will go to the artists themselves. This is an unfunded, non-profit project, not a general fundraiser for Kunsthall Oslo; all revenue from sales of these first four sets of prints will go towards the costs of the print project itself.
The artists:
Azar Alsharif works primarily with found images, but her practice is equally informed by poetry and the subversions of the cut-up technique. Alsharif finds a provisional, almost surrealist idea of beauty in the fragmentation of the everyday image world. Alsharif was born in Iran in 1984 and lives and works in Bergen. She graduated from Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 2011, and has had one-person exhibitions at Entrée, Bergen (2013) and Rom 8, Bergen (2012). She took part in the four-person group show Whileaway at Kunsthall Oslo in 2013.
Gardar Eide Einarsson (born 1976 in Oslo, Norway, lives and works in New York, NY, USA) makes works that uses a particular stylistic approach to highly charged source material. He works in a range of media from painting to text works and from light boxes to installation. Gardar Eide Einarsson has had solo exhibitions at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2010); Frankfurter Kunstverein (2007); Sorry, We’re Closed, Brussels, Belgium (2007), Nils Stærk Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (2006), Team Gallery, New York, USA (2005) and Marres Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Maastricht, The Netherlands (2004). His work has been exhibited at venues such as P.S.1., New York, USA; Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (both 2006); CCA Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland; Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul, Turkey (both 2005); Malmö Art Museum, Malmö, Sweden (2004); Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2003); and Casino Luxembourg Forum d’Art Contemporain, Luxembourg (2001). The artist is currently exhibiting within the 17th Biennale of Sydney – ‘The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age’.
Matias Faldbakken (b.1973, Hobro, Denmark, lives and works in Oslo, Norway) is a graduate of The Academy of Fine Art, Bergen, Norway, and Staatliche Hochshule für Bildende Künste, Städelshcule, Frankfurt am Main. Recent exhibitions include ‘The HHills’, STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo; ‘You Think You Go But You Gon’t’, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp; ‘Extreme Siesta’ at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, ‘Shocked into Abstraction’ the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; ‘Matias Faldbakken’, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, NY; ‘The Way of the Bummer’, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2008) and ‘Empty Glass’, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin (2008).
Ida Ekblad (b.1980) trained at Kunsthøgskolen in Oslo and the Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles. She has had solo exhibitions at among other venues Samtidskunstmuseet, Oslo; Karma Interna¬tional, Zürich; Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; New Jersey, Basel; Herald Street, London; Galerie Gaudel De Stampa, Paris and Fotogalleriet, Oslo. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions including Momentum, 5th Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art, Moss; Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York; and Lights On, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo.
Mohamed Ali Fadlabi works primarily in painting, performance and text. Although he has lived in Norway for the past decade, his work maintains its roots in African culture. In 2008, he co-founded the gallery One Night Only which presents a new exhibition every Monday. Fadlabi’s work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo (2012), Kunsthall Oslo (2011), Kunstnerforbundet (2011), UKS (2010), and the National Gallery (2007), as well as in Europe and Sudan.
FRANK is an Oslo based platform, established to nurture art and critical discourse revolving around gender issues, desire and sexuality. The platform operates in different locations and with various co-curators. Our aim is to build a community and create discussions that address the hegemonic structures in society. The first FRANK event took place in an old attic in St. Olavs gate in Oslo on April 15, 2012. It was initiated by Liv Bugge, Sille Storihle and Synnøve G. Wetten. Liv Bugge and Sille Storihle currently run FRANK.
Kim André Hagen is an Oslo street-culture rumour, sometimes accused of being a graffiti writer, artist and teacher.
Lars Laumann studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. He is best known for his experimental video collages, installations and documentary films. Laumann took part in the 5th Berlin Biennial in 2008 and in the Liverpool Biennial in 2010. In 2009 he won the Statoil Art Prize. His work has been presented at MOMA, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Basel; Kunsthall Oslo; Maureen Paley Gallery, London; Foxy Productions, New York; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo and VI, VII, Oslo, among many other places.
Lotte Konow Lund studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Her work has been shown at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo; the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Kunstnernes hus, Oslo among many other places. Her work is represented in the public collections of the the Museet for Samtidskunst (National Museum of Contemporary Art), Oslo and the Norwegian Arts Council.
Jon Benjamin Tallerås (b. 1984, Oslo, Norway) graduated from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2011. Tallerås works with a variety of media such as photography, video, sculpture, performance, text and installation. Tallerås investigates urban space, exploring hidden and often non-used areas of the city. Using found materials to create sculptures and making transient performances that claim the accidental gaps and spaces formed on the margins of functional architecture. He had a solo exhibition at Kunsthall Oslo in 2011, and his work has recently been shown at Akershus Kunstsenter, Lillestrøm and in the Sparebankstiftelsen award exhibition at Oslo Kunstforening. Parallel with his artistic practice Tallerås is one of the initiators and curators of the project space One Night Only Gallery.
Fredrik Værslev (born Drøbak, lives and works in Oslo and Vestfossen) received his Master from Malmö Art Academy, Malmö, and Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. Recent solo exhibitions include Standard, Oslo; Indipendenza Studio, Rome; Front Desk Apparatus, New York; Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö, and Circus, Berlin. Other group exhibitions include Centre Pompidou, Paris; Malmö Art Museum, Malmö; Le Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse; CCA Andratx, Mallorca; Herald St, London; Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin; and Thomas Duncan Gallery, Los Angeles.