NORWEGIAN SITUATIONS
Ryan Cullen, Naomi Fisher, Elizabeth Hart, Henrik Olai Kaarstein, Kornelia Remø Klokk, Kim Laybourn, Ivan Lee, Kobie Nel, Ann Cathrin November Høibo, Louis Schou-Hansen, Tanja Thorjussen, and Bobby Yu Shuk Pui.
Curated by Jackie Klempay
August 15 - September 20, 2024
Opening reception & performances: Thursday August 15th, 6-9PM
Performance schedule:
7:30PM Tanja Thorjussen
7:35PM Naomi Fisher and Elizabeth Hart
8:00PM Louis Schou-Hansen
8:30PM Ivan Lee
Hosted at NADA East Broadway
311 E. Broadway, 2nd floor NYC 10002
SITUATIONS is proud to announce Norwegian Situations, a group exhibition of prominent emerging and mid-career artists working in the contemporary Norwegian art scene, curated by SITUATIONS owner and director Jackie Klempay. Hosted at NADA East Broadway, the exhibition functions as a regional survey, seen through the lens of a personal travelog.
In June 2022, Klempay traveled to Norway through the NADA/UKS Curatorial Residency program, immersing herself in the scenes of Oslo and Bergen over the course of three weeks. Through her numerous visits with artists, curators, and gallerists working and exhibiting in these cities, Klempay noted that experimentation was valued above any practical or commercial concerns. Norway collectively believes and invests in cultural production as a vital component within a thriving society, in turn empowering resident artists to embrace bold ideas over more familiar approaches. The group of artists selected for this exhibition challenge their viewers through a variety of material and conceptual strategies, offering unique perspectives on navigating the contemporary human condition and their surrounding environment.
Throughout the exhibition, themes of transformation, ephemerality, and adaptation recur. Kim Laybourn and Tanja Thorjussen consider change from an ecological perspective in their works, using symbols of flora and fauna to examine the complicated relationship between humanity and nature. Laybourn’s film places viewers directly into an anthropomorphic landscape in motion, honing in on the forces that change and ultimately destroy nature. Thorjussen’s drawing triptych reimagines the symbol of the snake through the lenses of modern science and ancient cultures, expanding upon the creature’s metaphoric potential. Ryan Cullen’s painting is part of a larger body of work focussed on the representation of the death-drive at the apex of existential risk. A middle-aged businessman returns the viewers’ gaze while black oil oozes over his head, reveling in abject filth, guilt, and hubris.
Reinterpreting Norwegian textile tradition through contemporary means and materials, Ann Cathrin November Høibo’s hanging tapestry is silkscreened with a reflected image of interwoven braids. Kornelia Remø Klokk’s tapestry likewise looks to the history of weaving, while interjecting with allusions to digital life and bodily transformation. Her crimson sculptural figure emphasizes the body’s potential to pique both desire and disgust, and the uncomfortable proximity of those sentiments. Employing speculative fiction to delve into themes of human genetic engineering, Bobby Yu Shuk Pui’s “Genetic Salon” project proposes new dialogues around gender, identity, and the human body. Kobie Nel’s installation of pink foam is a subtle intervening presence, its material properties of color and sound-dampening heightens viewers’ awareness of their own physicality within the exhibition space. Henrik Olai Kaarstein’s abstract, painterly installation recasts lived-in everyday objects as potential surfaces and supports. A worn, gathered skirt of fabric and shattered, tempered glass bear impressions of the past while assuming new form and context through their combination.
An evening of performances will take place at 7:30PM on the night of the opening reception within the exhibition space. Louis Schou-Hansen taunts the homophobic ghost of American composer Charles Ives. Elizabeth Hart enacts a dancer’s warm-up routine, activating the ballet bar built into the surface of Naomi Fisher’s Edvard Munch-inspired painting. Ivan Lee taps into the sonic potential of plants to create a botanical soundscape.
As a whole, the exhibition offers an intimate portrait of the variety of innovative artwork currently being made by artists living and working in Norway, but not exclusively by those born in Norway. Like New York, Oslo and Bergen are incredibly cosmopolitan, and the artists of Norwegian Situations are from all over the world. By presenting the different ways in which they engage with Norway’s unique history, culture, and environment, the exhibition explores how artistic affinities are established in relation to a particular place. Offering distinct perspectives on the current moment, the exhibition establishes a cultural exchange between the close-knit creative communities based in these Norwegian cities and the sprawl of New York’s art scene.
VISITING AND FURTHER INFORMATION
Norwegian Situations at NADA East Broadway will be open to the public Tuesday - Friday, 1-6PM.
For more information please visit situations.us or contact info@situations.us. For press requests, please contact Renee Delosh at renee@situations.us.
This exhibition is made possible with generous support from the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and by Flanders State of the Art. Special thanks to Heidi Olufsen, Consul General; Ari Tiziani, Adviser, Arts & Culture, and the Norwegian Consulate General in New York.
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RYAN CULLEN (b. 1992) is an artist working in Brussels. Cullen studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, finishing in 2018. The artist received a BFA from the Cooper Union in New York City in 2016. Solo exhibitions of Cullen’s work have taken place at: SITUATIONS in New York City; The Meeting in New York City; Essex Flowers in New York City; Etablissement d'en Face in Brussels, Belgium; Studio Picknick in Berlin, Germany; and Portikus in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Group exhibitions that have shown Cullen’s work have taken place at: CLEARING in Brooklyn, New York; Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden, Germany; and the Museum fur Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; among others.
NAOMI FISHER (b. 1976) lives and works in New York and Miami. Over the past 20 years, her work has spanned painting, drawing, performance, photography, video, and site-specific installation, often in collaboration with dancers. Since 2004, Fisher has directed the W.A.G.E. certified 501c3 exhibition platform BFI (Bas Fisher Invitational). She has been the chair of the Visual Arts panel awarding and mentoring top high school art students with the National Foundation for YoungArts; lectures and does studio visits in schools like Princeton’s architecture program, Rogaland Kunstsenter, Norway; the University of Florida’s Visual Arts Program, and the CUNY photography program; and has been working on large scale public art commissions. Fisher’s work has been exhibited internationally in such venues as the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Halle fur Kunst, Luneburg; Kemper Museum, Kansas City; Kunsthalle Wein, Vienna; Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel; Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, Miami; and the Deste Foundation, Athens. Her work is included in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Art Boston, the Rubell Museum and more.
ELIZABETH HART is a New York based musician and performer. She enjoys creating site specific dance solos where the terrain and environment assist in the choreography. Over the past two decades, Hart has toured extensively and released several albums with different musical projects; Psychic Ills, Luca Yupanqui, Effi Briest, and Tierra del Fuego. She has worked with various visual artists, choreographers and musicians throughout her career and has performed in museums, theaters, galleries, and festivals worldwide including; MoMA, the Kitchen Dancespace Project, Judson Church, Basilica Hudson, Wadsworth Atheneum, MOCA, Miami Art Basel, Henry Art Gallery, Ballroom Marfa, CAPC (FR), La Route Du Rock (FR), Best Kept Secret Festival (NL), Paredes de Coura (PT), Plisskën (GR), Festival Fiis (CH), Futuro Festival (MX), Le Guess Who? (NL).HENRIK OLAI KAARSTEN (b. 1989) lives and works in Frankfurt, Oslo, and Brussels. Kaarsten studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 2010-2015 and at the Nordland College of Art and Film, Kabelvaag, from 2009-2010. Recent solo exhibitions of Kaarsten’s work have taken place at Marais/Moeras, Brussels; Tou Scene, Stavanger; Etablissement d'en face, Brussels; Gether Contemporary, Copenhagen; and T293, Rome. Kaarsten’s work has been presented in numerous group exhibitions, including Basel Social Club; FUTURA, Prague; Loevens Hule, Oslo; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; Hameenlinna Art Museum; and Kristiansand Kunsthall, among others. Press coverage has appeared in Kunstkrittik, Bruzz Magazine, Artreview, Frankfurter Allgeme Zeitung, New York Times, Flash Art, and Artforum.
KORNELIA REMØ KLOKK (b.1989) works mainly with textile, video and installation, blending aspects of traditional craft with technology. Her work draws on references from horror, posthumanism, speculative fiction and escapism, where she creates embodied environments through a loop of mythopoesis, world-building and constructed reality. She holds an MFA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and a BA (Hons) in Painting & Printmaking from Glasgow School of Art. Recent exhibitions include, amongst others; ECCE VERMIS: spewed out of dismal depths, as dust made flesh, Galleri Blaker Skanse, Norway (2024), SUPPORTING ACT equinox: the invocation of the xenosphere, Emmanuel Vigeland Museum, Norway (2024), Sub-terrestrial Decay of Absymal Ooze, Norway (2023), born slippy, Spriten Kunsthall, Norway (2022) and Such Stuff as Worlds are Made On, Spazju Kreattiv, Malta (2022). Kornelia Remø Klokk ́s participation in Norwegian Situations has received support from OCA International Support, and Norwegian Crafts and the Norwegian MFA’s Support Scheme for International Craft Projects.
KIM LAYBOURN (b. 1988) is a Danish visual artist living in Norway and educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, from which he holds a master's degree. Laybourn's practice includes text, video, sound, music, animation, drawing, sculpture and installation. In his practice, Laybourn deals with transcending our notions of reality, and its inherent or adopted possibilities and limitations. Including the constructions and concepts that are taken for granted, as final conditions, brought forward by political, religious and economic ambitions. Laybourn works with the human-centric worldview and concept of nature, as well as the tension between the authentic and the unnatural, which influences how we approach everything from ecosystems and biodiversity, production and resources, to gender and sexuality. He uses this to form notions of a heightened reality, which examines the human position, by virtue of everything we touch, and which surrounds and shapes us. In recent years, Laybourn has exhibited solo and in group exhibitions both internationally and nationally, these include: Tendenser biennalen, Galleri F 15 (Moss); Annka Kulty's Gallery, (London); BABEL (Trondheim); Østlandsutstillingen (Fredrikstad, Drammen); The National Museum (Oslo); Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art (Turku); BO (Oslo); Danish Cultural Center (Beijing); K4 (Oslo); Studio 17 (Stavanger); PODIUM (Oslo); Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen).
KOBIE NEL (b. 1984) is an installation artist based in Bergen. She holds an MA from Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2016) and a BA in photography from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia (2011). She works with installation, sculpture, photography, sound and text. She has a love for colour and an unrelenting interest in the intersection of the pictorial way of looking, or thinking, with a physical matter of the body and the materiality of things in a space. Recent exhibitions include Galleri Hvelvet, Parabol – Kunsthall 3,14 (2024), Høstutstillingen (2023), Norsk Billedhoggerforening, VOLT, Vestlandsutstillingen (2022), Gyldenpris Kunsthall (2021), Parabol – Kunsthall 3,14, Bergen (2020), Gyldenpris Kunsthall, Bergen (2020), Bergen Kjøtt (2018), Tag Team Studio, Bergen (2017), Galleri FELT, Bergen (2017) and Bergen Kunsthall (2016). Internationally, she has participated in exhibitions at places such as I: Project Space, Beijing (2017), Hong Kun Museum for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017), Colour Factory, Australia (2013) and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (2011). In 2017 her artist book Black Lake Monologue was published by CODA Press, Bergen.
ANN CATHRIN NOVEMBER HØIBO (b. 1979) lives and works in Kristiansand. She received her education at The Art Academy in Oslo and Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Recent solo exhibitions include Kristiansand Kunsthall; Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand; Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo; Carl Freedman Gallery, London; and Drei, Colgone. She is represented by the galleries STANDARD (OSLO) and the Carl Freedman Gallery in London. She has also contributed to many group exhibitions both nationally and internationally including Kunsthall Stavanger (2018), Turner Company in Margate, England (2017), Bergen Kunsthall (2016), Astrup Fearnley Museum (2015) and White Columns New York (2013). Høibo has also done monumental commissions for Agder Prison (2021) and the Norwegian Embassy in Washington (2021). Her works are collected by Nasjonalmuseet, Astrup Fearnley, KODE, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Sørlandets kunstmuseum and the Norwegian parliament, to name a few.
LOUIS SCHOU-HANSEN (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist and performer employing performance, text, installation, and curation to situate the body as a domain of fiction, largely narrated by myths from early modern Europe. From here, its work typically dives into assemblages of dissident subjects, re-animations of history, tragedies, and dystopian ironies, interested in the search for more compelling ways of living with a body and all that exists around it. Louis has done studies at Oslo National Academy of Dance, the Dutch Art Institute, and the Royal Danish Ballet School and its works has recently been presented at the ICA (London), Dansens Hus (Oslo), Copenhagen Contemporary, Suprainfinit Gallery (Bucharest), Dansehallerne (Copenhagen), My Wild Flag (Stockholm), and The Munch Museum (Oslo). In 2023, it was nominated for the Sandefjord Kunstforenings art prize together with Harald Beharie. Since 2024, it is the organizer of MIND EATER, an annual parasite festival for interdisciplinary performance and discursive practices in Oslo, together with Runa Borch Skolseg.
TANJA THORJUSSEN (b. 1970) is an artist living in Oslo, Norway. Her artistic focus is on the mystical and spiritual in nature and animals, hydrofeminism, and the science embedded in indigenous knowledge and ancient mythology. Art projects explore how revisiting and retelling ancient mythologies can help us create new stories to guide us into visualizing possible futures. In her public art works she creates sanctuaries in collaboration with plants and pollinators in urban space. Exhibitions include Museum of Archaeology, UiS, Stavanger; Kunstplass, Oslo; Gunter Grass Gallery, Gdansk; Hå Gamle Prestegård, Nærbø; and Vadsø Kunstforening; among others. Thorjussen was educated at KHIB in Bergen (NO) and Parsons The New School in New York (USA). On Saturday, August 17, 2024 she will host an afternoon workshop at Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn, NY, titled “Artist as Shaman: Drawing Workshop Connecting to Magic and Alchemy”.
BOBBY YU SHUK PUI (b. 1994) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Hong Kong and Oslo. Bobby’s practice is focused on building intimate relationships and collaborations, where physical, tangible and affective phenomena associated with body politics and the future are created by the media of video, text, installation, sculpture, and performance. Bobby received a BA from Hong Kong Baptist University and MFA at Oslo National Academy of Fine Art. She has exhibited her works at Parasite, Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, Tomorrow Maybe Gallery, EC Gallery (Hong Kong);Kunstnernes Hus, Galleri BOA, Podium, K4 Gallery, QB Gallery(Oslo); A Place Gallery & Studios (Florida); Youkobo Art Space Gallery (Tokyo); Swatch Art Peach Hotel (Shanghai); Listhus Gallery (Iceland). She was awarded the Best Director at 17th Freshwave Film Festival in Hong Kong.
JACKIE KLEMPAY is the owner and director of SITUATIONS, a contemporary art gallery based at two locations in New York City – Chinatown and Chelsea. Since 2010 Klempay has championed the work of emerging and overlooked artists through solo and group exhibitions, publications and public presentations. She has curated additional exhibitions for Aetopolous, Athens; White Columns, New York; Safe Gallery, Brooklyn; MASS Gallery, Austin, TX; and Foreland, Catskill, NY. Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, amongst other important publications. Klempay is a member of NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance), a board member of poetry imprint The Song Cave, and works closely with the Karlheinz Weinberger Estate.