Plattform: Political Work
, 17:00
Ane Hjort Guttu is next year’s Festival Artist at Bergen Kunsthall. For the exhibition Guttu is producing a film which is to be shot in Bergen, with the Bergen Academy of Art and Design as a central location. The film is about an art student who mounts an ongoing performative action in which she plays the role of a beggar on the street in Bergen, partly inspired by conceptual artists like Lee Lozano.
As an introduction to the film shooting, Guttu, in collaboration with the Bergen Academy of Art and Design and Bergen Kunsthall, arranges a seminar to discuss the issues touched on in the new film, but also those in Guttu’s artistic work in general. This could be described as the schism between art and politics on the one hand, and art as politics on the other. In this case Guttu’s work dwells on the former, the direct, relational, interventionist and actionist work done by artists which relates to «current affairs». Can artists work with politics in an effective way, or is politically oriented work best done outside the field of art? What does ‘effective’ mean in this context, and must political art be effective? Why do some artists choose to leave the art scene altogether, the better to pursue their artistic and political interests? How can artists and art students challenge and work with the boundaries between art and life? In what ways is ‘the art world’ politically significant in Europe today?
Bjønnulv Evenrud
Evenrud trained as an artist and mounted various artistic projects after graduating from the art academy in Oslo in 1997. However, he is best known as the initiator of the project Folk er folk (People are People), an organization working for better conditions for Roma in Norway. Folk er folk produces a street magazine, and they have initiated an employment exchange for Roma. Evenrud received the ‘Norwegian of the Year’ award from the weekly newspaper Ny Tid in 2012, and he has been an important and controversial participant in the debate on public begging.
Anders Rydell
Journalist and editor of the Swedish magazine Konstnären (The Artist). Rydell is the author of several books, among them Plundrarna (The Robbers) about the Nazi appropriation and theft of artworks during the Hitler era. The book is planned as the first in a trilogy on lost cultural treasures of the 20th century. A recent edition of Konstnären studies right-wing extremism’s threats against and censorship of today’s contemporary art scene.
Alexander Koch
Alexander Koch is one of the founders of the gallery KOW Berlin and has worked as a curator and editor on various exhibitions and publications. The ‘dropping-out’ of artists and the social significance of artistic practices have been principal concerns in his theoretical writings, and he has done extensive research on artists like Lee Lozano and Charlotte Posenenske. Koch studied visual arts in Dresden and Leipzig (1994-99) and taught at the Leipzig Art Academy until 2005.
Ane Hjort Guttu
Ane Hjort Guttu is an artist, film-maker and writer based in Oslo. Over the last several years she has been working with issues of power and freedom in the Scandinavian post-welfare state through video works, picture collections, sculpture and photography. Guttu also writes analytical and poetic texts, and several of her projects discuss historical art and architecture. Current projects include This Place is Every Place, Tensta konsthall, Stockholm 2014; Urbanisme Unitaire, Le Quartier, Centre d’Art Contemporain de Quimper, 2014; The Shadow of War, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Festival Exhibition, Bergen Kunsthall 2015.
The event is a collaboration with the Bergen Academy of Art and Design.
The talks will be held in English.
The program will include a screening of Ane Hjort Guttu’s film Untitled (The City at Night), 2013.
Plattform is Bergen Kunsthall’s lecture series. Plattform is supported by Fritt Ord.