Spring program 2021

Founded for artists by artists in 1921, today UKS (Unge Kunstneres Samfund/Young Artists’ Society) is one of Norway’s core exhibiting institutions, supporting new productions by emerging local and international artists.

2021 is a special year as UKS will celebrate its 100-year anniversary! The bulk of UKS’ centenary activities will take place in the second half of the year, culminating in a publication, a seminar series and a major exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo opening on November 12.

Before then, UKS is happy to announce that our new director Miriam Wistreich (b. 1985, DK) will take up her new position on February 15. Coming from a position as creative director at Hotel Maria Kapel in Hoorn (NL), Wistreich has previously worked with various organizations and institutions, including If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and ARKEN Museum of Modern Art. She is an alumna of the De Appel Curatorial program and member of the curatorial platform The Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology.

Under her leadership, UKS will present two solo exhibitions this spring by Bergen-based artist Amber Ablett (b. 1986, UK) and Oslo-based Damla Kılıçkıran (b. 1991, SE). Each will create site-specific works for the UKS gallery in downtown Oslo. The ongoing display series YOUNG DUMB & BROKE showcasing an early work by a now older, esteemed artist continues to run in parallel with UKS’ revolving solo exhibitions. Currently on display is an early flag piece by Elsebet Rahlff (b. 1940, DK). Rahlff is one of Norway’s most influential feminist artists and a leading proponent of the avant-garde since the 1960s. As a member of Bergen-based artist group Gruppe 66 she co-initiated, curated, and participated in the major exhibition Samliv/Common Life, hosted by UKS in 1978.

Amber Ablett: Rehearsal for A Change Gonna Come
Opening: Friday, January 29, 2pm
January 30–March 21, 2021

British-born artist Amber Ablett kicks off our 2021 exhibition program with Rehearsal for A Change Gonna Come, opening on January 29. Specially conceived for the three main spaces at UKS, Ablett presents a three-channel video installation with sound, combined with a series of workshops that investigate and question her sense of multi-belonging as a bi-racial person with light skin of British and Caribbean heritage. By embodying and re-enacting and being conscious of her own white privilege and white fragility, Ablett comments on how white-passing Black people can use their position to support others in their community. In doing so, Ablett addresses people on the spectrum of blackness, stressing the necessity of claiming one’s own agency through self-determination.

Amber Ablett (b. 1986, UK) holds an MFA from Bergen Academy of Art and Design and an MA from Camberwell College of Art, London. Recent exhibitions include solo and group exhibitions Anthems at Lydgalleriet, Bergen (2019); Høstutstillingen at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2019); and Archipelago at Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen (2019). Lately Ablett has been working with an ongoing workshop project titled Spoons Ignoring. Furthermore, she will be launching the publication Anthems in both an online and print edition. Ablett lives and works in Bergen (NO).

Damla Kılıçkıran
Opening: Friday, April 23
April 24–June 27, 2021

For her first major solo exhibition, Oslo-based artist Damla Kılıçkıran expands her artistic process into urban territory with heightened sensory care. Using seemingly ordinary materials that belong to the city’s ever-changing infrastructure – such as asphalt, Styrofoam, aluminum and concrete—Kılıçkıran investigates their potential as spirits and transformative forces in order to activate the human body’s sensory capacity beyond the merely empirical. By simulating, morphing, and transferring, Kılıçkıran utilizes the performative qualities of these urban totems to create an almost erotic scenography that invites the visitor to dissolve in them.

Damla Kılıçkıran (b. 1991, SE) recently received her MFA degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, having previously studied at the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art and Creative Writing, Södertörns University and the College of Printmaking in Stockholm. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Destiny’s Atelier in Oslo (2020), and group exhibitions at Lofoten International Art Festival (2019); Nordnorsk kunstnersenter, Svolvær (2018); and THE SUN SETS AT 17:43 at Akademirommet, Oslo (2019).