An evolving five-year programme of art in public space
osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION 2019–2024 is delighted to announce further details of its projects and the first participants invited. The biennial launches in Oslo, Norway, with an opening weekend on May 25–26, 2019 (press preview: Friday, May 24), followed by a symposium on Monday, May 27.
Free, accessible and often unexpected, art in public space is different from art in a museum. osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION 2019–2024 sets out to explore the unusual contexts and questions deriving from art in public space through an evolving five-year programme, with participants invited to work with the city, public space and the public sphere. This expanding programme will evolve and grow, adding and announcing new projects and participants as the biennial moves forward in time.
Proposing a new biennial model, co-curators Eva González-Sancho Bodero and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk note in their curatorial statement: “The works pose questions about the timeframes and situations in which they operate, contexts that overflow conventional, institutional time/spaces. How are such works produced and presented? How do they engage with audiences, or enter an art collection? What kind of curatorial framework supports these works and their timeframes, which may stretch indefinitely beyond the one-off event? How might this framework be designed or constituted?”
During the opening weekend, visitors can discover a range of projects encompassing sculpture, text works, experiences, performances, painting, sound, public outreach and workshops by Mikaela Assolent (France), Benjamin Bardinet (France), Julien Bismuth (France), Carole Douillard (France), Ed D’Souza (UK), Mette Edvardsen (Norway), Jan Freuchen, Sigurd Tenningen and Jonas Høgli Major (Norway), Gaylen Gerber (US), Hlynur Hallsson (Iceland), Rose Hammer, Marianne Heier (Norway), Michelangelo Miccolis (Italy/Mexico), Mônica Nador and Bruno Oliveira (Brazil), Michael Ross (US), Lisa Tan (US/Sweden) and Øystein Wyller Odden (Norway).
With varying tempos, rhythms and lifespans, the projects presented will respond to the contingent contexts of public space:
Visit a pavilion, constructed in a wasteland in the vicinity of one of Oslo’s busiest and biggest traffic junctions. The first presentation of Oslo Collected Works OSV. entails five sculptures of animals.
Encounter French artist Carole Douillard’s performance piece, The Viewers, staged for the first time in locations across the city to challenge the strict division between public and private.
Discover a sculptural artwork by British artist Ed D’Souza based on a full-sized, 3D photographic recording of a crashed Hindustan Ambassador car found in Delhi and recreated in the Grünerløkka neighbourhood in a local workshop run by furniture maker Eddie King.
Enjoy a work of literature read to you by a living book borrowed from Norwegian artist Mette Edvardsen’s “library,” which evokes Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451, where books are banned and an underground community learns books by heart to preserve them for future generations.
In the Brechtian Lehrstücke tradition, review pivotal moments of the history of Norway via a series of short theatrical pieces and performances created by the collective persona Rose Hammer.
Investigate the musical potential of electric currents in Norwegian artist Øystein Wyller Odden’s sound piece. It brings sound to the building’s disused organ pipes using the Norway’s electrical frequency, 50 Hz, which emits an almost indistinguishable yet omnipresent low “G” tone.
Using a map, discover unknown, lost or untold tales through the works of American artist Michael Ross’ evocative miniature sculptures hidden in three locations in the city: the interior space of a watchmaker, an antiquarian and the exterior corner of a building located on a street corner.
Take part in Marianne Heier’s extraordinary love letter to art history with a guided tour and performance in Oslo’s now vacant Museum of Contemporary Art that offers a heroic interpretation of the plaster copies of famous sculptures so fundamental to traditional art academic education.
Details of artists and projects opening in May can be found here.
On Monday, May 27, under the title “What does it mean to launch a Biennial that breaks with the usual ways of addressing space, time and theme?”, an opening symposium will introduce the biennial and its four conceptual premises: Art Production within a Locality; New Institutional Ecologies, Addressing the Myriad; and A Collection for the Passerby. Guests speakers include: Mikaela Assolent, Dora García, Marius Grønning and Shwetal A. Patel, with guest participants Binna Choi, Chto Delat, Claire Doherty, Jesús Fuenmayor, Lara García, Marianne Heier, Ulrike Neergaard, Paul O’Neill, Farid Rakun, Ruben Steinum, Tereza Stejskalová and Vít Havranek.
In October 2019, a second set of projects will be launched, featuring confirmed works by Adrián Balseca (Ecuador), Marcelo Cidade (Brazil), Jonas Dahlberg (Sweden), Anna Daniell (Norway), Edith Dekyndt (Belgium), Tomáš Džadoň (Czech Republic), Oliver Godow (Germany), Javier Izquierdo (Ecuador), Graziela Kunsch (Brazil), Belén Santillán (Ecuador) and Knut Åsdam (Norway).
Over the course of the next five years, the expanding programme for the years ahead will be announced at regular intervals as the biennial moves forward in time.
Initiated and financed by the City of Oslo, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Norway, osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION 2019-2024 opens May 25, 2019 and runs until 2024. The biennial is the result of OSLO PILOT, a two-year experimental and research-based project that laid the groundwork for the biennial curated by Eva González-Sancho Bodero and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk.
For media requests or to register for press accreditation, click here.
Local and national press: Hilde Herming / hilde.herming [at] oslobiennalen.no
International press: Helena Zedig, Pickles PR / helena [at] picklespr.com and Amanda Kelly, Pickles PR / amanda [at] picklespr.com
