Underskog

Curated by Helga-Marie Nordby & Nicolas Siepen

A Klee drawing named ANGELUS NOVUS shows an Angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the Angel of History. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The Angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
(W. Benjamin)

We live in chaotic times. The world is shaking under our feet and it feels like anything could happen anytime. Nobody’s in control any more: God is dead, the big ideologies are dead, the nation state is no longer the authority. And on the backside of the last decade`s events and crisis, all sorts of destructive forces come back haunting us in a freaky parade.

Is this the right image of our current global situation or just a big made up story by the media? Entering the 21st Century the Apocalypse seems no longer just a projection, but a real threat. We have global challenges, which cannot be dealt with within the framework of the nation state. The fall of the Soviet Union sent us right into the global capitalist universe, which we believed to be the great new world. It`s all still there though, religious and ideological faith, however existing in smaller, more fragmented and also extreme forms.

The history of mankind is a story of tearing down and building up in an ever- increasing speed. What do we do when humans no longer have the chance to keep up, when the tearing down goes faster than the building up? When the most sustainable structure we have invented and know is Capitalism, constantly reaffirming and reinventing itself? How can we make sense of this, and what does it imply for us, for you, me, for art? Capitalism has failed us. What are our alternatives?

The exhibition REALITY is a reaction to and exploration of the state of our time.

With: Bini Adamczak, Matti Aikio, Jesper Alvær, Geir Backe Altern, Kaja Cxzy Andersen, BADco., Bassam El Baroni, Jeremy Beaudry, Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, Tor Erik Bøe Anna Daniell, Chto Delat, Valentina Desideri, Trine Falch, Bodil Furu, Pål Steinar Gumpen, Crispin Gurholt, Sigurd Gurvin, Vebjørn Guttormsgaard, Miriam Haile, Nav Haq, Geir Tore Holm, Linn Horntvedt, Actually Huizenga, Marietta Kesting, Kuk & Parfyme, Kurant, Tara Mahapatra, Hilde Methi, Midskills, Jan Erik Mikalsen, Mondo Tromsø, Eline Mugaas, Hans Christian van Nijkerk, Sjur Nyvold, Jet Pascua, Margrethe Pettersen, Nicolas Siepen, Ingrid Bøe Sørensen, Sille Storihle, Nicolas Woche

Your are also invited to REALITY The Seminar:
Saturday 9th of June at 1 pm – 4 pm.
Make sure you also get hold of REALITY The Publication.

For more info about the exhibition contact curator Helga-Marie Nordby
[email protected], mob. +47 48117013

Visningsperiode: 7. – 29. juni 2012