TheMoen/Another Music/Sacred Fear

January 15th – February 27th 2011.

To download the Exhibition Guide (including the exhibition map and the list of exhibited works), click here

To download the Press review of the exhibition, click here


TheMoen 

Kunsthall Oslo presents the first solo exhibition by the painter and
graphic artist TheMoen. TheMoen’s substantial body of work is not yet
well-known even in Norway, and we are very pleased to have the chance to
introduce it to a wider audience.

On the surface, TheMoen‘s central subject is the everyday landscape of
southern Norway and its vernacular culture. Small towns, suburban
streets, custom cars and rock and roll, surrounded by forests and the
sea. But in TheMoen‘s art, everyday provincial life is a transparent
illusion, through which an uncanny parallel world is clearly visible.
Precisely-rendered scenes reveal an animistic, almost psychedelic vision
of hidden figures, unknown forces, wrinkles in the fabric of space and
time. TheMoen himself is his own artistic creation, a suburban seer who
has managed to escape from the mundane world into an equally frightening
and chaotic place, where fragments of pop culture merge with intimations
of the infinite, and the consensual hallucination of reality takes
second place to the mind-altering power of the hand-drawn line. TheMoen
asserts, perhaps with good reason, that the mainstream artworld has
neglected the contributions of the 20th century subcultures –
underground music and film, or classic comic art in particular. His own
work, nonetheless, recalls the style and imagery of artists like Daniel
Mróz as much as Robert Crumb, Max Ernst as much as David Lynch.

Another Music 
Mohamed Ali Fadlabi 
Luke Fowler 
Lemi Ghariokwu
Linder Sterling

Another Music is a group show of work by artists whose practice is
directly concerned with the complex relationship between image
production, music and politics. Mohamed Ali Fadlabi, a painter based in
Oslo now making new work for Kunsthall Oslo, is perhaps best known for
the controversial cover image of the Gatas Parlament record Apocalypso,
showing a Christ-like figure tied to the Norwegian flag. Luke Fowler‘s
documentaries question the classical concepts of musicianship and
composition, and relate them to political ideologies, particularly in
his case study of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra. Lemi Ghariokwu‘s
painting was brought to world attention during his long collaboration
with Fela Kuti, and his focus remains on an agitational relationship to
the many unsolved questions of the third-world vs the first-world.
Linder Sterling is a Manchester-based artist and musician whose work,
informed by feminist ideas and Dadaist visual strategies, made a key
contribution to the politics of the punk aesthetic, and continues to
test the boundaries of mainstream taste in the interests of a future
erotic egalitarianism.
The Sacred Fear 
Karin Erixon
Ahmad Ghossein
Petter Napstad
Lina Norell
Oscar Qvale
Jon Benjamin Lund Tallerås

Alongside his participation in ‘Another Music’, Kunsthall Oslo has
invited Mohamed Ali Fadlabi to curate a project outside the gallery
space. ‘The Sacred Fear’ is an exhibition distributed around the city,
with works on show in a bar, a shop, a club, an office, a gallery and an
art academy. Fadlabi writes ‘I never thought I was a curator. I am not
even sure I am an artist yet. And here comes a real institution asking
me to curate a show. Well, for some reason I found myself doing it
anyway. Probably because of my African upbringing. We were taught to
listen and respect those who knew better. Ladies and gentlemen, this is
a very personal show. I have chosen locations I am familiar with in Oslo
and invited friends to show their art.’

Tuesday 18th of January
Oscar Qvale, Kandaka boutique, Markveien 56 C, 17.00
Karin Erixon, Galleri Blå, Brenneriveien 9 C,  18.00
Ahmad Ghossein, Turkish Delight, Torggata 35, 20.00
Thursday 20th of January
Lina Norell, Kirkholm law office, Akersgata 43, 9.00 – 16.00
Petter Napstad, Semikolon, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Fossveien 24, 17.00
Jon Benjamin Lund Tallerås, One Night Only, UKS, Lakkegata 55 D. 20.01, 20.00