Autumn program 2021

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

This autumn, UKS presents the first Scandinavian solo exhibition by Marseilles-based artist Dominique White, followed by our 100th anniversary which will be celebrated with great fanfare through the last months of the year, with a publication, seminars, and a large-scale exhibition and public program at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo. We also continue the ongoing mini display series YOUNG DUMB & BROKE, showcasing an early work by a now older, esteemed artist. The current edition features a sketch by Brit Fuglevaag (b. 1939, Norway), on view until October 10.

Dominique White: Blackness in Democracy’s Graveyard
August 14–October 10, 2021

Three large-scale sculptural interventions in metal, mahogany, destroyed sisal, shreds of over-used sails, and raffia engulfed by kaolin clay currently fill the spaces of UKS. In her first large solo presentation in Scandinavia, Dominique White draws inspiration from the global protests and riots relating to George Floyd’s death; the toppling of Confederate and Colonial statues in the UK and US in 2020; the destruction and mythicism that hurricanes in the Caribbean leave in their eternally transformative wake in the sea; driftwood washed ashore; and the act of sailing under a “flag of convenience”—when maritime vessels change their registration while at sea. Appropriating this nautical metaphor, White imagines Blackness as a concept and state of being that fluctuates between bodies and spaces, never able to settle; fungible like the goods traded within capitalism. An exasperated battle cry, White’s work imagines another world and manifests as weather-beaten relics washed ashore, the ruinous architecture of a subaquatic anti-state.

Dominique White (b. 1993, UK) has recently presented work at exhibitions and venues including Techno Worlds, as produced by Goethe-Institut, Munich (2021–); Possédé·e·s at MO.CO, Montpellier (2020–21); and Boundary + Gesture at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2019). White is based in Marseilles, France.

100 years of conviviality
Opening: Friday, November 12
November 13, 2021–January 2, 2022

Throughout its lifetime, UKS has been a space for art to be developed and discussed, for new collaborations to be born, and for old formats to be discarded. At UKS, young artists have presented collective projects and provocative attacks on central concepts in culture, as part of a continuous rethinking, updating, and renewing of contemporary art. UKS celebrates our 100th anniversary by highlighting how the conditions for art have been pushed forward by the young artists themselves—and points to what still needs to be done. The questions addressed in the anniversary project are as diverse as the history itself, but the answer is what has always defined UKS: collective organization.

The exhibition what you can see is what you can imagine will explore the joys and challenges of living together across art and politics. Both a collective fantasy, a question to our shared imagination, and a prompt to do better, the exhibition presents historical works from famous and forgotten artists and new commissions by both young and older artists.

The title for the exhibition is kindly lent to UKS by artists Katya Sander and Mo Maja Moesgaard.

With Anna-Eva Bergman / Per Inge Bjørlo / Erik Brandt / Marianne Brandt / Marte Eknæs / Finn Faaborg / Yngvild Fagerheim / Brit Fuglevaag / Else Hagen / Marius Heyerdahl / Åsa Jungnelius / Iver Iversen Jåks / Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Mader / Linda Lamignan / Lars Laumann / Per Jonas Lindström / Elise Macmillan / Elina Waage Mikalsen & Magnus Holmen / Mo Maja Moesgaard & Anne Louise Fink / Ahmet Öğüt / Clevon Pran / Elsebet Rahlff / Aase Texmon Rygh / John Savio / Tai Shani / Signe Munch Siebke / Kjartan Slettemark / Håkon Stenstadvold / Willibald Storn / The Alternative School of Economics / Silje Figenschou Thoresen and more.