Writer Kari Adelaide and her husband, artist Max Razdow were recently in Norway for AiR Nordland Residency. During that time they viewed an exhibition by Norwegian based artist Jennie Hagevik Bringaker who will be participating in the New York Art Book Fair along with Hagevik Bringaker and Tor Erik Bøe as Trollkrem. Her review from the exhibition in Oslo and a preview for the upcoming performance in New York is below.

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, installation view at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, Installation view at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner, Oslo, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker’s exhibition at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner occurred in a large, glass atrium space within a busy corridor of Oslo’s subway system.  The title, “Tilnaermet like,” translates to “approximately equal.”  The space was set up like a window display into a deep and dusty gallery, and the viewer was invited to peer into the exhibition through large, floor to ceiling windows, without ever gaining entrance.  Within the space, Hagevik Bringaker created a slippery and impermanent blend of performance, sculpture and video documentation, with overlaps that defied medium and a sense of finitude.  In “Approximately Equal,” according to the artist, everything was connected to wrapping.   She created sculpture by marking, stringing, air vacuuming and creating various angles and common shapes:  squares, triangles, and circles.  Hagevik Bringaker underwent a systematic investigation of materials as basic and stable forms, such as boxes, linked together with what she described as “variables,” and the “infinite,” such as clay, water and string.   Each performance was filmed in process, and these documents were projected upon the gallery’s walls, while reflecting off of the sculptural materials, creating what might be considered both a documentary and extended stop-motion animation in three dimensions.

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, installation view at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner, 2014

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, Installation view at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner, Oslo, 2014, Courtesy of the artist.

During the first week of “Approximately Equal,” all of the windows of the space were covered by flat boxes, creating a wall across the gallery that separated the viewer from the interior.  Hagevik Bringaker explained that it felt “like a secret at the beginning,” one that was eventually revealed through the process of removing the boxes one by one, and changing the sculptural quality they assumed many times a week.  As the space opened up and was re-imagined with heightened intricacy over time, Hagevik Bringaker began to create of sculptural drawings, rubbing charcoal on strings, tracing their lines, and marking the strings’ shadows that were cast by movable lights placed at various angles.  This undertaking involved Hagevik Bringaker being covered in charcoal — her fingerprints and footprints appeared everywhere as traces of her embodied performance, echoing the complex, unmetered movements that surrounded the space.

 

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, installation view at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Jennie Hagevik Bringaker, Installation view at Projesjekktrom Carl Berner, Oslo, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Hagevik Bringaker and Tor Erik Bøe, together collaborate on Trollkrem (translates to Troll Cream, named after a traditional Norwegian dessert), an artist run, traveling performance and sculpture project.  Trollkrem will participate at Printed Matter’s upcoming New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, as part of the NORWAY FOCUS: KUNSTNERBØKER program.   At the Fair, Trollkrem will present a series of tribute posters that portray Norwegian performance artists, in collaboration with more than a dozen photographers and graphic designers.

Trollkrem, courtesy of the artists.

Trollkrem, courtesy of the artists.

On the staircase of MoMA PS1 on Saturday, September 27, at 1 pm Trollkrem promises “flamboyant and weird” performances with their “favorite American and Scandinavian performance artists.”  The Los Angeles based artist, singer, filmmaker and composer “Actually” aka Ashley Huizenga will perform.  The stairwell roster also includes Peter Clough, Vanessa Albury, Yngvill Rolland, Pia Eikaas, Jason Martin, Trollkrem, Tyler Matthew Oyer (TMO) and Lisa Lie.

More soon

xo