calendario eventi  :: 

X

5/11/2003

Torbjorn Sørensen, Bjorn Bjarre

Galleri Wang, Oslo

Galleri Wang's autumn exhibition line-up continues with Torbjørn Sørensen (b. 1961) og Bjørn Bjarre (b. 1966). Both live and work in Oslo.

Thorbjørn Sørensen. First Floor

Thorbjørn Sørensen is known for his methodical and precise paintings. Characteristic is the presentation of different painterly expressions side by side in one and the same exhibition, surprising the public with profound artistic leaps, again and again. His attitude to painting has been one of openness and pragmatism. Sørensen has alternated between photorealistic figuration executed with airbrush, pencil drawings, watercolors, and colorful abstract paintings of stripes and circles. Thorbjørn Sørensen's art has been called industrial and inspired by design. The latter because of Sørensen's accuracy. His demand for precision can at times surpass machine-produced industrial products.

The present exhibition at Galleri Wang is once again sharp and constructive. But the exhibition is also an hommage to tradtional, sensual and immediate painting. His works are larger than before, and some are executed with something close to painterly sensibility. The design aspect of Sørensen's works has been toned down, and lies more in the background.

The size of Sørensen's works give them a greater physical presence in the room than before. Some of the paintings are so large that you can stroll beside them and discover the stripes of color along the way. The challenge Sørensen met, was to keep the intensity and tension across the pictorial plane, even though he was only able to work small areas of the painting at a time. Sørensen has also begun to polish the surface of some of his paintings. The light from the underlying layer is thereby able to shine through the paint, creating surprising and powerful effects, which occasionally are challenged by fresh stripes without the lighteffects. By introducing new and reductive means in his paintings, Sørensen breaks with the machine-like precision he is known for, opting instead for a more painterly and sensitive surface treatment. In the work M&M, Sørensen combines the different strategies and sources of inspiration for his works. Here, the synthetic, constructive and mundane approach meets the romantic approach, all in the same painting. Sørensen thereby creates a mixture of conflict and reconciliation between opposite principles in his work. Stripes can become doors that are ajar into rooms in history and tweak our curiosity, or be seen as critical contributions to contemporary art's transience and lack of comprehensive study.

This is Sørensen's 4th solo exhibition in the gallery. Sørensen is represented in the collections of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, The Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs, Telenor, Statoil and Nordea.

______________

Bjørn Bjarre. Project room: And...and...and...but

"Bjørn Bjarre has since 1995 presented a series of works under the heading "Abstract Feeling" ­ now, close to a hundred sculptures. The sculptures, marked by surrealistic innocence and corporeality, are conservatively placed on pedestals, but executed in childhood's molding material number one: plastellina. The figures belong in a laughter-inducing dungeon of horror ­ a twisted ancestral gallery from the crazy world of Bjarre. The madness, more than just everyday pains, is a feeling of crazed calm, anxiety or visionary doomsday prophecy, and just the same a discovering game of depicted traumas and psychosomatic distortions. This is equally the young man's lovable nightmare, as historical visions of hell with eternal suffering and obscure pains."*

In the project room exhibition, Bjarre shows Abstract Feeling No. 99, and related sketches. At the same time, the book "And...and...and...but (Selected drawings 1991-2003)" will be released by the publishing house Biondi Books. While the project room presents what is likely to be one of the last sculptures in the series, the book presents a glimpse back; a retrospective collection of drawings and sketches from the Abstract Feeling-period. In the exhibition and in the title there is a sense of doubt: Is this a history that is to be concluded, is sculpture no. 99 the last sculpture, and is the book a complete collection drawings, or will it never end?

Bjørn Bjarre is also presented in the exhibition "Expressions of Laughter", at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, and in The Norwegian Sculpture Biennial 2003 in Haugar Vestfold Art Museum. In February he will be part of a large exhibition of Norwegian Contemporary art at The Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. Bjørn Bjarre is represented in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Bergen Art Museum, and several public and private collections.

(*From Geir Tore Holm's catalogue text to the Norwegian Sculpture Biennial 2003.)

6.11-14.12. 2003 Opening: November 6th 7 PM

For more information please contact: Erikka Fyrand on tel. +47 22 11 51 70

In the image: Untitled 2002, Acrylic on canvas 65x200 cm.

Galleri Wang
Kristian Augusts gate 11
Oslo

stampa

permanent link