Diamond
1.26 carat diamond encased in the facade of Bergen Kunsthall, and performance outside Bergen Kunsthall, 2012.
Performers: Marianne Heier (text/speech), Guri Egge (song) and Einride Torvik (installation).
Director: Ole Johan Skjelbred.
Video documentation: Bodil Furu.
The work Diamond was a performance on the opening day of the exhibition Surplus by Marianne Heier. During a ceremony Heier presented a diamond to Bergen Kunsthall. The diamond was bought with money the artist earned from her own work and from sales of artworks. During the performance the diamond was walled into the facade of Bergen Kunsthall while the opera singer Guri Egge sang the aria “Vissi d’arte” from Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, an aria that is precisely about the uncompromising nature of art, about what is not for sale. The presentation took place after Marianne Heier gave one of her distinctive speeches.
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From the exhibition:
Marianne Heier
SURPLUS
Festival Exhibition 2012
Bergen Kunsthall
24 May – 5 July
Curated by Solveig Øvstebø
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Marianne Heier (b. 1969) lives and works in Oslo. In her projects Heier often explores specific institutions ’from the inside’. Her projects can be seen as situated within an institution-critical artistic praxis; but Heier’s critique from the inside is more often the result of personal engagement, motivated by personal, lived experience, than of a calculated, strategic institution-critical praxis. Her recent solo exhibitions and projects in public space include Jamais – Toujours, Stenersen Museum, Oslo (2010); Saga Night, Maihaugen, Lillehammer (2008); Pioneer, ROM, Oslo (2007); and Waldgänger, KORO, Hammerfest (2008). She has participated in group exhibitions at a number of institutions such as Kunsthall Oslo (2011); Hiap, Helsinki (2010); Overgaden, Copenhagen (2009); the Henie Onstad Art Centre (2009).