Marius Engh at Veda – Art Viewer

Artist: Marius Engh

Exhibition title: Bohemia (Serpentinous Embrace)

Venue: VEDA, Florence, Italy

Date: November 24, 2022 – January 31, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and VEDA

C’monna, why’want to, surely gonna make it a try Chiquita, I needa, cut me off a piece of ya…

Attacked by monsters Kissing dogs

Smoking and poking, changing in the blink of an eye Fly high by my window at night…

Lately a message talks about a place in the world Little by little the mystery begins to uncurl
Snakey’s awakey and he wants a little piece o’ the pie C’monna, why’want to, surely this’ll cause you to die.

– Meat Puppets, Attacked by Monsters, SST (1989)

I told you the case of that intuitive girl who suddenly came out with the statement that she had a black snake in her belly.
Well now, that is a collective symbol. That is not an individual fantasy, it is a collective fantasy.
I first thought perhaps she was crazy, but she was only highly intuitive. She had intuited a typical, or archetypal, image.

– Carl Gustav Jung , Excerpt of interview by Dr. Richard Evans of the University of Houston. Originally released by Penn State University (1957)

One of the most important features in the mythology of Hermes is his presiding over the common intercourse of life, traffic, journeys, roads, boundaries, and so forth, and there can be no doubt that it was chiefly in such relations as these that he was intended to be represented by the Hermae of the Greeks and by the Termini of the Romans, when the latter were identified with the Hermae. It is therefore natural that we should look for the existence of this symbol in the very earliest times in which the use of boundary- marks was required; and in such times the symbols would be of the simplest character, a heap of stones or an unhewn block of marble.

–A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) , William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin, Ed

Marius Engh investigates cultural life and ideas spiralling from the historical landscape, spirit and etymology of the name Bohemia. Earlier exhibitions under this title are: Dromomania, Van Etten, Oslo; Phynance Argothique, Hulias, Oslo (2021); Bohemia (Dr. Faustroll’s Study), Jane / K.O.S A, Oslo (2021); Bohemia (In the Gesture of Swimming or Praying), Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (2020); Bohemia (Les Jours et les Nuits), Luis Adelantado, Valencia (2020); Bohemia, K.O.S A, Oslo (2019) and Bohemia (I), VIS, Hamburg (2018).

Marius Engh, Bohemia (Serpentinous Embrace), 2022, exhibition view, VEDA, Florence

Marius Engh, Sleeping-bag Hallucination #1, 2022, Paint and paint stamps on book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, wooden table, 200 x 70 x 30 cm each

Marius Engh, Sleeping-bag Hallucination #4, 2022, Paint and paint stamps on book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, wooden table, 200 x 70 x 30 cm each

Marius Engh, Bohemia (Serpentinous Embrace), 2022, exhibition view, VEDA, Florence

Marius Engh, Bohemia (Praha – Paris), 2021/2022, Silkscreen on cotton paper 300 g/m2 Hand colored originals, 100 x 70 cm

Marius Engh, Bohemia (Serpentinous Embrace), 2022, exhibition view, VEDA, Florence

Marius Engh, Sleeping-bag Hallucination #4, 2022, Paint and paint stamps on book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, wooden table, 200 x 70 x 30 cm each

Marius Engh, Sleeping-bag Hallucination #1, 2022, Paint and paint stamps on book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, wooden table, 200 x 70 x 30 cm each

Marius Engh, Sleeping-bag Hallucination #3, 2022, Paint and paint stamps on book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, wooden table, 200 x 70 x 30 cm each

Marius Engh, Sleeping-bag Hallucination #2, 2022, Paint and paint stamps on book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, wooden table, 200 x 70 x 30 cm each

Marius Engh, Hermes, 2022, Stones from quarry production (pietra serena), uranium glassware (x 4), toothpicks, 141 x 96 x 102 cm

Marius Engh, From Bohemia to Bohemia in Spirals (Regina Europa by Sebastian Münster), 2022 Book folder, silk screen print, linoleum print, book cover board, book-binding weave-tape, 90 x 64 cm / 45 x 64 cm, Hermetiske Skygger Bouquiniste, Oslo