Oa4s at 1857 – Art Viewer

Artist: Oa4s

Exhibition title: The Fencer And The Beekeeper: A Treatise Of The Mechanics Of Engagement Of Two Discrete Objects In Space And The Miracle Of Collaboration Outside Time

Venue: 1857, Oslo, Norway

Date: May 13 – June 19, 2016

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and 1857, Oslo

The beekeeper and the fencer stand opposite one another in a long hall.

(Imagine that.)

Back-to-back, and facing each other at either end.

(Somehow seeing, and at the same time not seeing, one another.)

Each one stands with a mirror to their back.

(Each can see in the other’s mirror what the other cannot see.)

Rather than a bridge, a bricolage between them.

(The distance is mended by an assemblage of gestures and forms.)

They see of one another only what they may through a curling smoke of incompatibility.

(The smoke is a grey space between them, which curls and furls, limiting and permitting their visibility for one another in different formations over time.)

When the fire burns the cotton, it interacts only with those qualities it needs to combust the cotton.

(Only those qualities necessary for eliciting a response are called on by the other.)

The smoke says: Persistent identification of an object over time is a consequence of cognition, not of the object itself.

(As the qualities of an object are in flux over time, the appearance of a consistent identity is at most an illusion had by the perceiver.)

For the beekeeper, it is the first day of a new calendar year. For the fencer, it is New Year’s Eve.

(They are at two terminals in a circle of time.)

The grain of the fabric of their suits is thick – so much so that they feel like there are folds within the folds of their clothes.

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Oa4s (On all fours) is a working-group, active since 2013, and based in Amsterdam and Mexico City. Recent solo-exhibitions include “Laugh now, laugh later”, Lock-up International, Los Angeles; “True butterfly”, Chin’s Push, Los Angeles; and “Special Features”, Lodos, Mexico City. Their work has been shown in recent group exhibitions such as “Welcome to Earth, the story so far”, High Tide, Philadelphia; and “Basic Instinct”, Seventeen Gallery, London. Upcoming exhibitions include “Temra and David in 4 parts”, Sorbus gallery, Helsinki.