Unwoven World: Beyond The Pliable Plane
10 April–22 June 2014
Opening: Wednesday 9 April, 7pm
With a concert by Kim Myhr, organised in
collaboration with Ultima
Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Nedre gate 7
0551 Oslo
Hours: Thursday–Friday 3–7pm,
Saturday–Sunday noon–7pm
Closed on 20 April; 1 and 17 May
OCA is pleased to announce the opening of Unwoven World: Beyond the Pliable Plane, an exhibition presenting the works of Norwegian artists Brit Fuglevaag, Elisabeth Haarr and Sidsel Paaske, who in the 1970s explored the domestic sphere and the everyday consumer object. These artists engaged in an intensive quest for a return to traditional crafts, emphasising the profound need to explore alternative creative modes, systems and media. Using weaving techniques, textiles and seriality, they insisted on the communicative role of the two-dimensional surface as one that moves beyond the mere picture.
Paralleling their concerns with those of the 19th-century Norwegian weavers, they contested the role of media, which augmented a streamlined perception of both the private and the public spheres. The catalysts of heated debates about the role of artists within society, Fuglevaag, Haarr and Paaske aimed to challenge the means deemed appropriate to the creation of a work of art, as well as question the values that place that art in the public realm.
Presenting key works, some of which have never been seen publicly before, the exhibition Unwoven World: Beyond the Pliable Plane aims to function as an index of a historic genealogy, reactivated through the performativity of words, texts and concerts. On the occasion of this exhibition OCA also presents the first English translation of Paaske’s poem “Indigo,” originally published in 1979.
Unwoven World: Beyond the Pliable Plane marks the completion of the programme “Fashion: the Fall of an Industry,” a series of lectures held at OCA in the autumn of 2013. The lectures analysed the decline of the textile industry during the 1970s in Norway as well as artistic reaction to and reflection upon the unforeseen aspects of industrialisation, the need to care for environmental and working conditions, and the social impact experienced through the outsourcing of production.
The exhibition is also accompanied by a selection of Alexander Kluge’s eclectic collection of “raw materials,” a series of television programmes assembling photographs, drawings, diagrams and diverse footage construed to “strengthen the muscles of (our) power of imagination.” Alexander Kluge, a central figure of the German cultural landscape—as a filmmaker, writer and television producer—has for the past fifty years been tackling the capacity of fantasy to organise individual experience otherwise concealed by structures of consciousness and the screens capturing our attention.
Exhibition design: SPACEGROUP
Visual identity: Hans Gremmen
For press inquiries, please contact press [at] oca.no.
Upcoming within the OCA semesterplan—spring
A concert by Kim Myhr, Morten Olsen and Valerio Tricoli
Organised in collaboration with Ultima
Wednesday, 7 May, 7pm
“String Theory. The Aesthetic of Crafts and the Crafting of Politics. Some Commentary on the Work of Goshka Macuga, Etel Adnan, Alighiero Boetti and Füsun Onur”
A lecture by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
Wednesday, 28 May, 7pm
“Phoenix Public Sphere. Man is no Private Being”
A Lecture by Rainer Stollman, followed by the screening of The Blind Director (Alexander Kluge, 1985)
Wednesday, 4 June, 7pm
About the 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.