SPECIAL FEATURE: Selection of shows at 1857

1857 is an artist-run exhibition space occupying a former lumberyard in Grønland, downtown Oslo. It was founded in 2010 by artists Steffen Håndlykken and Stian Eide Kluge, with graphic designers Eriksen / Brown as essential collaborators.

The space consists of a 280 m2 concrete factory hall, with raw concrete walls and 11 metres to a ceiling with beautiful skylights, which has been joined to an older wooden house with a storefront facing the street.

1857 aims to introduce young international artists to a Norwegian audience, and takes advantage of the high degree of freedom that comes from being an artist-run space in terms of how exhibitions are conceptualised, formulated and presented. There is an on-going conversation that runs through all of the shows about how to challenge or disregard conventions that prevail in institutional exhibition making. This approach has lead 1857 to open-ended collaborations with artists as well as characteristic exhibition designs, press releases and cocktails served on the openings.

AN ACCOUNT OF DISCOVERY AND WONDER

Artists: Francis Alÿs, Alan Bean, Elaine Cameron-Weir, Mirak Jamal, Sean Landers and J. Parker Valentine. With a collection of objects curated by Markus Li Stensrud

Exhibition title: An Account Of Discovery And Wonder

Date: February 13 – March 22, 2015

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists and 1857, Oslo

AN ACCOUNT OF DISCOVERY AND WONDER; Detailing intrepid exploration, inevitable peril and infallible resolve, as evidenced by relics, replicas, artifacts, counterfeits, documents, samples, souvenirs, ephemera, scraps and residue.

Sean Landers, Around the World Alone (The Gloucesterman), 2015

Mirak Jamal, Alex – proposition to a Detroit highway, 2015

Elaine Cameron-Weir, A terrestrial sediment melted by hypervelocity impacts from outer- space, most fell on bohemia, molten, forming strange shapes and solidifying bottle green like the eyes of a gorgon, 2014

Alan Bean, The Source of Intelligent life, 2006 – 2014

Elaine Cameron-Weir, 1969 (series), 2015

J. Parker Valentine, Untitled, 2015

A collection of objects curated by Markus Li Stensrud

SUNBATHERS II

Artists: Ilja Karilampi, Margaret Lee, Ugo Rondinone, Santiago Taccetti

Exhibition title: Sunbathers II

Date: May 23 – August 17, 2014

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists and 1857, Oslo

The ancient belts of roofing felt are cooking. Sux up the sun (now, oh! so close) and are charged with heat like a bastard. Fix yr grin. (Don’t grin). Put on your goggles or shades.
[Photos will look corny from this one].
— Hey! We’re up here! Yes, here. Dancing.
Charleston above Bavaria, with only one woman onboard (if you’re lucky – but fused with drinks inside, gentlemen also dance with each other). Gin Rickeys across the Stanovoy mountain range. Accordions and gramophones. All days, all eyes, boldly, out the portholes. The Graf Z. crossed the Atlantic in only two days (going eastward) early August 1929. And that was just the beginning. All chambers highly pregnant with hydrogen gas. Shadow so beautifully bulbous it could easily be eyeballed, sliding on the waves, 700 feet below. Within or above the clouds. White noise of cloud grease.

This is the only way to travel.

The moderate speed of the locomotive – but sailing in the breeze, above everyone else. (Below they work their days, like bugs). The scent of tandoori or fumes from the factories won’t bring us down – neither factually, nor mentally. We’re elevated for now, and thereby forever. All is flat from this far above. And almost too easy to reduce to imagery. Pictures with tongues. Not even moving.

Let’s leave it at that. And add 6 notes to consider in case you cannot decide:

1. Playful dashes of light on the Pacific O is a kick-ass spectacle.

2. The chef has a personal pair of binoculars.

3. You are right and we are wrong. But we’re also youthful enough to revel in small attentions.

4. The heavens are on fire in the distance. Not here, nor as seen from here, but seen from somewhere else: they burn, and we can go there. (They burn, the heavens, with the same exploding gas we forcefully control & contain).

5. The background is cluttered, but art is clutter anyway. Go toss your rocks in your own fucking glass house.

6. The Box is Bad. If the piece can’t deal with being out of its snow, in shifting light: fuck it. Your clutter clearly isn’t worth the hassle.

●●●

Do you? Do you —

Believe me.

What got me up was thinking I don’t have to come down.

So,
ascend this vessel, with dignity, for once. With equilibrium. With grace. Not as a coward–rat, afraid it might crumble. It’s not meant to be fallen from, but sure, it is also a stage.

Caught like a balloon, burning like a Hindenburg. With food and fuel supplied in flight, we will drift forever.

Ilja Karilampi, I.K. Trill Oslo Security Tape, 2014

Margaret Lee, Outside is OK Too, 2014

Ugo Rondinone, SUNRISE. June, 2004

Santiago Taccetti, Non-smokers S03E01, 2014

Santiago Taccetti, Non-smokers S03E02, 2014

SUNBATHERS

Artists: David Douard, Aude Pariset, Adele Röder, Camilla Wills

Exhibition title: Sunbathers

Date: May 25 – August 11, 2014

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists and 1857, Oslo

Everything is more pleasant now that it is warm outside.

The sun rises over Oslo. Light green trees shoot leaves sending a thin mist of pollen through the city. Birds nest in the cracks between buildings, under the eaves of houses, on steel beams and concrete ledges, their constant cooing is heard almost everywhere. A badger rummages through a row of trashcans: “I am an animal,” he says in his thick badger accent.

Sunbeams through the skylights draw semicircles on the northern wall, dipping further down towards the floor for each day that passes, and marking on the horizontal outlines of the plank formwork molded into the concrete a sundial of the day and a calendar of summer.

A small crowd has gathered to interpret the signs and portents of the sun, but only one of them is speaking. He reads to the others the law, a different law, and proclaims himself king of a different world: Akhenaten, the beautiful one under the sun.

Faltering notes from a nylon-string guitar are heard. It sounds like du-dududu, short pause, dududu-dududu-du, “no” dududu-du – a beginner’s level version of Stairway to Heaven.

David Douard, S1CK 54LIVA, 2013

Camilla Wills, Psychic cabaret and crudités, 2013

Adele Röder, Untitled, 2013

Aude Pariset, Hosted As Seen On Screen / Ultrasport Klappstuhl, 2013

Adele Röder, Untitled, 2013

TUSSIE–MUSSIE

Artists: Liudvikas Buklys, Allison Katz, Theodor Kittelsen, Rolf Stenersen, Ruth White, Federico Domínguez Zacur

Exhibition title: Tussie–mussie

Date: March 22 – April 28, 2015

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists and 1857, Oslo

Say it with flowers!

The tussie-mussie was an indispensable fashion accessory of Victorian times, a hand-held posie carried in an elaborate holder made from ivory, glass, or mother-of-pearl, and decorated with jewels or etchings. The small bouquets gained a new dimension through floriography, the art of sending messages through flowers. Each and every flower and colour of flower had a meaning and a thought behind it, something that made the composition of a bouquet a complex and time-consuming process. Even the way a bunch of flowers was presented held a coded message, which could be of acute importance when the aim was to express feelings for a loved one.

●●●

Newly wed and living in the idyllic small town of Hvitsten, Theodor Kittelsen produced some of his darkest works. His version of the folktale water spirit Nøkken was said to live in Haugertjern, a nearby lake overgrown with water lilies. He decorated several walls and ceilings in his house, but the only remaining paintings are a few careful studies of cut flowers on the doors to the front parlour adjoining his studio.

In Liudvikas’ study for flowerpots, table corners take the shape of shelves that hold parts of the show.

Hammering away at a typewriter in his office, stockbroker Rolf Stenersen would sometimes pause and let his thoughts wander. He would latch on to some train of thought and let his fingers follow dreams, childhood memories and strings of immediate ideas. The paragraphs he wrote in between his business correspondence formed the basis for his output as a novelist. In the preface to his experimental Stakkars Napoleon (Pity Napoleon) he wrote: “Only by pulling the subconscious into the waking mind can we reach an approximate comprehension of ourselves.” His editor told him to go see an analyst.

For a long time now Allison has been secretly painting store-bought bouquets still in their cellophane wrappers.

Federico’s online translator sometimes presents contradictions. “Only two paintings are, and anything more,” it says, describing his contribution to the show. “I folded slightly paints. In order to modify the size and the ream wrapper.” It has a competent grasp of practical matters, as well as unbending optimism: “Do not worry, with a little heat from a iron on the back of the works will be perfect. It is difficult to have a concrete way to bring his own work elsewhere. I’ll watch your notice when they finally reached the paintings. It will be a time of joy and peace!”

And also a temple smelling the evil* inside itself.

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* The Flowers of Evil (1969), composed and realized by Ruth White, an electronic setting of the poem of Charles Baudelaire.