Autumn 2017 program

UKS (Unge Kunstneres Samfund / The Young Artists’ Society) is an institution for international contemporary art and a Norwegian political membership organization situated in Oslo’s city center.

Founded by artists for artists in 1921 as a social club for the Norwegian avant-garde—combining biweekly boozing at local bars with artistic showcasing, critical debate, and political work—UKS still considers informal social functions, intellectual exchange, and attempts at friendship a fundamental part of its remit. Long established as one of Oslo’s key institutions for experimental artistic practices and displays, UKS recently extended and renovated its current premises and is remodeling its institutional make-up over the course of this year. In autumn 2017, UKS launches a program including the first large-scale solo exhibitions in Scandinavia by Thora Dolven Balke, Georgia Gardner Gray, and Constance Tenvik. In parallel, the MINIBAR and a growing series of talks on Artists’ Institutions are new regular fixtures in the UKS program.

Thora Dolven Balke: All that respires, conspires
Opening: Thursday, September 7, 5pm
Performances: NaEE RoBErts and Klein, Friday, September 8, 10:30pm

A large, collaborative exhibition and radio series organized by artist, researcher, and curator Thora Dolven Balke (1982, NO, based in Rio de Janeiro and Lofoten), All that respires, conspires reflects on the act of conspiring. Etymologically to “conspire” comes from Latin “con” + “spirare”: to breathe together. Following sonic movement through bodies, group conversations, and gossip—for example via Milford Graves’ compositional studies into the human heartbeat—the project combines interviews, field recordings, archival footage, and commissioned compositions from Brazil, Norway, Germany, the UK, and the US. Collaborators include Erik Balke, Dominic Barter, Sandra Benites, Camilla Rocha Campos, Henning Christiansen’s archive, Ian Erickson-Kery, Trine Falch, Dr. Karl-Heinz Frommolt, Milford Graves, Gaby Hartel, Klein, Marssares, Musa Michelle Mattiuzzi, Amilcar Packer, and NaEE RoBErts (Sandra Mujinga).

Georgia Gardner Gray: Concorde
Opening: Friday, October 27, 7pm
Performances: Friday, October 27, 9pm; Saturday, October 28, matinée 3pm, soirée 7:30pm

Commencing in autumn, a sequence of exhibitions will employ both UKS and a part of the neighboring venue, Kunstnernes Hus. First up is a solo show by the psychedelic, fin de siècle-inspired painter, sculptor, and occasional playwright Georgia Gardner Gray (1988, US, based in Berlin). Changing the ground floor of Kunstnernes Hus into a black box staging the iconic, sculptural bodywork of the Concorde, the artist portrays the perverted voice of the supersonic turbojet in a dark class satire. In contrast, the UKS exhibition space offers a quiet context for Gray’s libertine and hysteric subjects, presenting a series of deep-hued figurative canvases mounted on austere industrial stands.

Constance Tenvik: Myk Harnisk / Soft Armor
Opening: Friday, December 8, 7pm

Another two-fold show will open in December by Constance Tenvik (1990, NO, based in Berlin and Oslo). Draughtsman, masquerader, and filmmaker, Tenvik’s project Soft Armor focuses on a disastrous attempt at restaging a medieval joust in a Scottish castle in 1839, exploring the idle potential of show(wo)manship and dumb folklore, in a hilarious, timely pointer to conservative regress. Kunstnernes Hus hosts a Gesamtkunstwerk of sculpted gymnasium vaulting horses flanked by video performances, while at UKS the artist presents her abundant graphic novel annotations, mind maps, and ephemera.

Other programs
Occupying a tiny nook in the UKS storefront spaces, the MINIBAR is a new monthly feature in the UKS program. Inviting guests to a night hosted by rotating local and international artists, the MINIBAR offers mini prizes in a city where bibulous sociability normally comes at a mega cost. How to run, model, and (re)invent dexterous and malleable artist-centered institutions? The UKS talk series about Artists’ Institutions opened in spring with voices including Angie Keefer of The Serving Library (Liverpool), Lise Soskolne of W.A.G.E. (New York), and Steffen Håndlykken of 1857 (Oslo).

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