Ola Jørgen Ness – Atarxia at Gallery Haaken, ending 16.10.2016

Resilience, 2016

Urban Template, 2014

Detail from Asssorted Qualia, 2016

“Resilience”, 2016, acrylic on mdf (30 x 20 cm) is the ultimate painting in the room. I can not free myself from the word "powerhouse" Picture frames holding the energy of the picture within. And the rest: large panels covering walls at Gallery Haaken with Ness’ manic detailed and complex shapes, forms and colours. Urban, organic, meditative, explosive. Who the hell will let their arm connect mechanically and obedient to the creative brain producing a wall of 4 meter x 7 meter (!!) with mind boggling pencil drawings forming intricate patterns in different colours? Ness will, and the result is overwhelming. The idea is to reduce the artist to a human printer or medium through which creativity can flow. And it works!! Mystic, organic and modern, sucking you into the same flow. We had a hard time untangling from Ness organic universe making an exit to the real world. 

Ataraxia (ἀταραξία, "not perturbed") is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and subsequently Epicurus for a lucid state of robust equanimity, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. The ancient Greek author Sextus Empiricus gave this definition: "ataraxia is an untroubled and tranquil condition of the soul." ^[1] In non-philosophical usage, the term was used to describe the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle. (From Wikipedia).

Naturally?

“Three visions of landscape” at Galleri A, Oslo. Ending 16^th of October.

These paintings communicate solitude and perspective.
The three, male, artists: Christopher Rådlund, Jon Lindestad Bakken and Marius Moe share their observations of and about nature. Clean, beautiful, distant, solitude in toned down palette. Some motives under a looming sky, other night motives. Nature slumbering under ice, at the doorstep of winter and the coming frost or under a night light moon. Nature as we want it to be? 

Marius Moe, "November" 170 x 120 cm, oil on canvas 

Marius Moe, "November" 170 x 120 cm, oil on canvas , detail.

Jon L.Bakken "Mountain theme II" 50 x 40 cm. oil on canvas

Jon L.Bakken "Mountain theme VI" 70 x 70 cm. oil on canvas

Beautiful. But nature can not oppose culture in a painting.  It naturally becomes loaded representations. A creek running through a landscape that is both distant and near, panoramic and down to details: falling leaves, broken sticks a solitude straw. Eye lead to the horizon, attention kept on details. Or the cabin in the middle of the snow and ice cowered mountains. Small reminiscence of something else, breaking the monotony of unspoilt nature. Nature not untouched, nature going through change. Shifting light, coming frost or decay, a night light sky. What will happen in the next second, will the scene change or stay put?  What will bring about change? Natural beauty at first glance, but looking closer I sense the constructions of inner landscapes by a closer look. Inviting, yet remote. Clean and beauty, still about to change. Pictures that apart from their beauty keep my attentions and makes the exhibit worth wile a visit.  

Observingart: Daniel Richter, Lonely Old Slogans

Daniel Richter
Lonely Old Slogans
8 September 2016 - 8 January 2017
at Louisiana 

Studie zu Das erstaunliche Comeback des Dr. Freud, 2005 

Oil on canvas

220 x 170 x 5 cm

The German painter Daniel Richter (b. 1962) belongs to the generation succeeding Germany’s “Junge Wilde” in the 1980s, but he has insisted on painting as a genre at full intensity – and in full colour. The exhibition Daniel Richter. Lonely Old Slogans shows around 45 of his highlights from the period 1995-2015. What we see is a painter who experiments with a variety of visual languages – the abstract, the figurative, the poster-like – and does so with reckless energy and great artistic aplomb. 

Read more at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Observingart: Picasso

Self Portrait. Barcelona or Paris, 1901 

Pen and sepia ink on cardboard 12.8 x 9.8 cm 

Gift of Pablo Picasso, 1970

Museu Picasso, Barcelona

Louisiana on Paper Picasso before Picasso
28 drawings from Museu Picasso, Barcelona
29 June - 11 September 2016

The exhibition Louisiana on Paper – Picasso before Picasso features 28 of Picasso’s earliest works, all in the collections at Museu Picasso in Barcelona, where some of the few drawings extant from the very earliest period are still preserved. 

The exhibition shows the birth of the genius through a number of examples that contain the seed of the Picasso who left his mark on most of art history in the first half of the twentieth century. 

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Observingart: photography

'Wasteland with Elephant' 

by Nick Brandt from Inherit the Dust 

 2016

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UPCOMING EXHIBITION LOOK. AND THEN LOOK AGAIN.  The first you notice might be the aesthetics. And if you look again, you might discover the other side.  The first group show at WILLAS contemporary. The technique and aesthetic differ, but they all have one thing in common. They strive to create art that make us question ourselves. Art that make us look at the world from a different perspective.  Roger Ballen  Nick Brandt  Steinar Christensen Jeff Cowen Arno Rafael Minkkinen  Kjell Torrise Read more at Willas Contemporary

Observingart: JASPER JOHNS + EDVARD MUNCH at Munch Museum, Oslo

Selvportrett. Mellom klokken og sengen. Edvard Munch 1940-43

The exhibition examines the connection between Edvard Munch's work and one of the truly great names in contemporary art – Jasper Johns. Never before has there been such a comprehensive exhibition of Johns' art in Scandinavia.

Read more 

Observingart: news

Jeppe Hein,  There is Always Someone Else  (2016)  ART BASEL 2016 Booth K4 June 16 - 19 | 2016 Read more at Galleri Nicolai Wallner

Observingart: Nicolai Astrup at HOK 10. juni - 11. september 2016

Nikolai Astrup,
Marsmorgen, ca 1920
As one of the most renowned Norwegian artists, Nikolai Astrup's work transforms the rugged Norwegian landscape into a mythical, living entity. This is the first international exhibition of his paintings and prints. At HOK the exhibition is expanded with new contemporary artworks that treat the relationship between life, ecology and sustainability with the same commitment as Astrup did.

Read more at Henie Onstad ArtCentre

Is Astrups' "Marsmorgen" a genuine expression of natures own, organic, primal cry 

(un)like to or in dialogue with Munchs "Cry"? 

Observingarts: THE BROAD PRESENTS CINDY SHERMAN: IMITATION OF LIFE

Image credit: Cindy Sherman, Untitled #92, 1981

The Broad’s first special exhibition will debut in June with a comprehensive survey of the work of artist Cindy Sherman. Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life is the first major museum show of Sherman’s work in Los Angeles in nearly 20 years, and the exhibition will fill The Broad’s first-floor galleries with close to 120 works drawn primarily from the Broad collection.

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Observingart: news

Large nr 2 (the-flying-burrito-brothers -mix)
Øystein Tømmerås, 2016
200 x 250 cm

ØYSTEIN TØMMERÅS

26. may  –  19. june  2016

www.gallerihaaken.com

JEPPE HEIN

PATH OF SILENCE

KISTEFOS, NORWAY 

Read more at 

Galleri Nicolai Wallner

Jeppe Hein, Path of Silence (2016) Photo credit:  Thomas Reining

Sascha Braunig - Warm Leatherette, 2015 Read more

Observingart: news

ICEBERG (detalj) 

pen, acrilyc and bitumen on paper

"My research is focused on human shape and on symbolic aspects trying to counterpose visible and invisible. I research the submerge part of human being, his psychophysical structure."

Take a look at Moira Francos work at

Galleri Ramfjord webpages.

La Que Sabe 2014
pencil on paper
33 x 48 cm

Observingart: Sunken Gardens Helene Schmitz at Willas Contemporary, Oslo

Sunken Gardens 

Helene Schmitz

Untitled 3

Image size: 150 x 112 cm 

With frame: 155 x 117 cm 

Edition 5 + 2 AP

"Sunken Gardens" by Helene Schmitz - on displayed at Willa's Contemporary in Oslo

 - is a veritable visual and mental kick! 

It's like entering a world both familiar, but manufactured in a strange way. Nature is warlike, swallowing culture for lunch. Buildings and other symbols of culture goes with the tide. Nature takes over, overcomes culture in the pictures. They are great, both in format, curating and not least because of the photographic craft. I wandered around the Angkor Wat ruins in Cambodia years ago. There I felt the same presence of a nature that requires back, filling the void left by manmade culture. For Schmitz pictures are about the absence of people and the overwhelming presence of nature. Where Asians are trying to find the balance between nature and culture, the nature Western culture becomes brutal because it has provided no room for coexistence, rather battle and war. When we also manipulate nature, it strikes even more brutally back at culture. Left in Schmitz pictures are memories of culture and an overwhelming, almost frightening silence and the dominance of nature. It is - in my opinion - best expressed in black and white. It really gets the vegetation to breath of silent revenge. In the great plant portraits, thoughts fly to the ongoing Mapplethorpe + Munch exhibition at the Munch Museum. Schmitz conveys - unlike - Mapplethorpe a subtle, feminine interpretation of nature. She is therefore interestingly enough more open to a dialogue with culture / nature than Mapplethorpes loaded, homoerotic expressions. 

No wonder the only thing that breaks the exhibition quiet and meditative rest at Willa Contemporary is the undergrowth of red dots.

My wife thinks: absolutely fantastic, it gave me a kick. Black and white pictures: spectacular!

Schmitz was born 1960 in Stockholm, and holds a BA in Film & Art Theory from Stockholm University in Sweden. Cinematography is a major source of inspiration for Schmitz in her exploration of architecture and spatiality. She is interested in spaces as carriers of meaning, memories and references.

Read more at Willas

Observingart: news

Self Portrait (5/16), 1965. 

VejleMuseerne – Kunstmuseet 

© Gernes Estate.

Poul Gernes

I cannot do it alone – want to join in?

2 June - 16 October 2016

Poul Gernes (1925-1996) is one of the truly great Danish artists of the post-war generation, and for years 

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art has wanted to shed light on this impressive and insistent figure. Outside the

borders of Denmark, too, interest in Gernes has been notable – from Documenta in Kassel in 2007, through 

Deichtorhallen in Hamburg to the museums in Lund and Malmö in 2010.

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Francis Bacon, 1909-1992
Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho 1967
Oil paint on canvas
1980 x 1475 mm

Francis Bacon: Invisible Rooms

Read more at:

Tate Liverpool: Exhibition

18 May – 18 September 201

Image: Image: ARMANDO MARINO,  Victorious II, 2015, 240 x 179 cm. SUMMERTIME 16 THE BIG ANNUAL GROUP SHOW 27.05.16-13.08.2016 Galleri Christoffer Egelund

Observingart:news

Søren Lose, Gothic deconstruction #1 (Köln), 2016
Ink-jet print, coffee, beeswax, collage, framed by the artist, 191 x 120 cm, unique 

Read newsletter from Peter Lav Gallery

© Thron Ullberg, Barbro Osher, 2016.

​Barbro Osher this year’s Portrait of Honour

Nationalmuseum Sweden 

Aidan, Love, 

white statuary marble, 

210x155x42, 2015

Aidan

Wailing Wall

May 27- July 1, 2016

Wetterling Gallery is proud to present the exhibition Wailing Wall by Aidan Salakhova 

including drawings and new large scale marble sculptures.

Aidan, born in 1964, is an Azeri and Russian artist based in Moscow and Carrara. 

She works in sculpture, painting, drawing and video discussing questions about inherited ideas, 

in particular social concepts about women and their role in society. 

By using traditional artistic practice she identifies characteristic elements and reinterprets 

them to convey her individual, progressive vision. Aidan’s works can be found in many private and 

public collections including the State Treryakov Gallery, the Moscow Museum of Moderna Art, 

the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Francois Pinault Foundation, Teutloff Museum and the Boghossian Foundation.

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Grear Patterson  - The other side of the valley,  2016, 117x173 cm (parachute and sail) Across 110th street Nick Farhi & Grear Patterson 19 May - 25 June Read more

Observingart: news

Anders A: The Least and Outermost 

14 MAJ–9 OKTOBER 2016

Read more at Moderna Museet

Observingart: Japanese influence on Nordic art

Japanomania in the North:

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 

Wild Angelica, 1889.

Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen

For the first time ever, an exhibition will focus on the wide-ranging Japanese influence on Nordic art and design around 1900. Works by leading Nordic artists such as Gerhard Munthe, Bruno Liljefors, Helene Schjerfbeck, and Oda Krohg will be presented alongside works by European pioneers such as Monet, Gauguin, and van Gogh. 

When the exhibition opens 17 June, it will be shown at two venues, with an emphasis on visual arts at the National Gallery and on design at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design.

This Japanese inspiration, known in the world of art as Japonism, was the result of Japan opening its borders in 1854, but it first became evident in the Nordic countries from the 1880s on. 

Asymmetry, simplification, stylization, and looser shapes and forms were new stylistic elements that revolutionized both art and the decorative arts, thereby prefiguring modernism in the Nordic countries. Japanese paintings and colour prints were also instrumental in developing the visual arts, while porcelain, ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, and similar goods from Japan inspired designers and craftsmen to develop new aesthetic idioms. The exhibition will show around 400 objects inspired by Japanese design, as well as 200 paintings and woodcuts.

The curators for the exhibition are Widar Halén and Vibeke Waallann Hansen. The curators for the exhibition at the Finnish National Gallery Ateneum, where the exhibition is currently on display, are Gabriel P. Weisberg and Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff.

Bruno Liljefors, Jays, 1886.

Nationalmuseum Stockholm

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Observingart: news

Foto: Pipilotti Rist, Sip My Ocean, 1996. © Pipilotti Rist. 

Courtesy kunstneren, Hauser & Wirth, Luhring Augustine og Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Pipilotti Rist at SKUM from May  12. 2016

Read more at SKUM

Serina Erfjord

You.Line

Hilmar Fredriksen
EGENSKAPER
Veggskulptur

From May 12. 2016

Read more at Kunstnerforbunde

JOSE DÁVILA

Untitled (Blonde Waiting) (2016)
Archival pigment print
150 x 150 cm

GALLERI NICOLAI WALLNER AT FRIEZE NEW YORK
More at Gallery Nicolai Wallner