The University of Agder’s Art Collection
Campus Grimstad
The University of Agder ’s Art Collection Campus Grimstad Mette-Line Pedersen Senior Adviser/Art Historian for UiA’s art collection
Art and visual experiences at the University of Agder
The art at the University Agder is experienced by students, staff, and visitors on a daily basis. But do you actually notice it? Many of the works from the art collection are, in fact, worth a closer look. Contemporary art often poses more questions than it provides answers for, and can therefore be felt to be out of reach. Our aim is to make the art at UiA accessible for everybody and create room for curiosity, pleasure, and reflection. Over the years, UiA has received its works of art both as gifts and purchases, often supported by various foundations. Public Art Norway (KORO) has also played an important role in funding and initiating projects of high artistic quality. The collection comprises national and international contemporary art, and we are proud to be able to say that we have the world’s largest collection of Beat Art. This was donated by Reidar Wennesland in 1978. The main part of the Beat collection has been brought together and displayed at UiA Kristiansand, but parts of Wennesland’s collection, such as the copper engravings and a selection of Beat drawings are also to be seen at Campus Grimstad. In this catalogue, a selection of the art collection in Grimstad will be presented. It has been extended in recent years and today comprises paintings, photographs, ceramics, collages, room decorations, installations and drawings. Works in storage, such as Hamsunfantasier and Håkon Bleken’s Hedda Gabler, can also be found here. The works of art in the collection relate to their architectural surroundings, as well as the study and research activity taking place here. New works of art are continually being purchased, and the collection reflects the development in contemporary tendencies through the years.
UiA places great emphasis on reaching out to the largest possible audience through the dissemination of art. By opening up the opportunity to access it, experiences arise which can provide new explanatory and interpretive possibilities. UiA therefore facilitates a broad and varied dissemination strategy of Beat and contemporary art. A comprehensive cataloguing project covering the art collection is also being carried out on the website artsy.net.
Collections at UiA Campus Grimstad The Wennesland Collection In 1978, Reidar Wennesland (1908 – 1985) donated his art collection to Kristiansand Cathedral School and Agder University College. The most famous part of this is the extensive Beat Art collection which comprises works from both unknown and famous artists. In addition, it includes a collection of unique copper engravings with approximately 180 reproductions of paintings from the 1800s. The copper engravings were originally a part of the collection belonging to the De Young Museum in San Francisco, but in the 1960s, the museum sold a range of works of art. A number of these were bought by Wennesland. It is fascinating to see that he also collected these more traditional and classic artworks – a clear contrast to the abstract expressionism of the Beat art. This sense of scope in the collection communicates a great deal about the character of Reidar Wennesland and his artistic tastes. More information about the copper engravings collection can be found in the book: Connecting Lines. Engravings from the Wennesland Collection.
Glimpses from technological developments in Agder The Agder counties have a rich and vibrant technological tradition. In the autumn of 2002, Agder University College, through the Faculty of Engineering, set in motion a project which aimed to acquire photographs with accompanying texts illustrating the regions’ distinctive technological character. In the spring of 2004, a two-year fundraising project resulted in the exhibition Glimt fra Agders teknologiske historie (Glimpses from Agder’s technological history). The exhibition displayed 65 photographs in various formats together with explanatory texts.
Hamsunfantasier In this generous pictorial cavalcade from Knut Hamsun’s world, a veritable national team of Norway’s most prominent visual artists offer their interpretations of Hunger, Victoria, Mysteries, Growth of the Soil, Pan, and the poems from The Wild Choir. The paintings are by Unni Askeland, Benjamin Bergman, Sverre Koren Bjertnæs, Håkon Fenn, Anne Karin Furunes, Therese Nortvedt, and Kjell Erik Killi Olsen. UiA also stores parts of the collection from Grimstad Bymuseum.
KORO KORO (Public Art Norway), or Utsmykningsfondet for nye statsbygg, as the organisation was originally named, was established by the Norwegian Parliament in 1976. Since that time, they have worked extensively with facilitating the production of art for public buildings and outdoor spaces. The government’s collection of art in public spaces has become an important part of the Norwegian artistic heritage. It is located at around a thousand different sites at home and abroad, and includes significant works of central Norwegian and international artists. Every year, it is supplemented with new works of art from a few hundred visual artists, craftsman designers and art photographers. In this catalogue, some of the KORO art which is spread around Campus Grimstad will be presented. Many of the works come from other artistic projects, but were moved to new premises in Grimstad in 2012. Several of the projects and individual works in the KORO collection are available on the webpage koro.no.
Ole Lislerud Your Body is a Battleground (2012) Porcelain picture UiA’s art collection
Lars Korff Lofthus U.T. (Vindhammertunnellen) (2013) Oil and acrylic on canvas UiA’s art collection
Lars Korff Lofthus går i dialog med heimstadmalarane i nyare norsk kunsthistorie. Lars Korff Lofthus (f 1978) bur og arbeider i Hardanger og Bergen. Han produserer primært maleri, men arbeider og med skulptur, tekst, video og installasjonar. Arbeida kan karakteriserast som ei pågåande etterforsking av geografisk identitet. Motstridande element frå gardsoppvekst, urbanitet og lausrivinga frå desse er sentrale. Korff Lofthus er utdanna ved Bergen Kunst- og Design Høgskole, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi og Nordiska Konstskolan i Kokkola, Finland. Arbeida hans er stilt ut i inn- og utland, blant anna ved LAUTOM Contemporary, Small Projects, Kunstmuseene i Bergen, Galleri Langegården, Bergen Kunsthall, Entrée, Dortmund Bodega, Knipsu, Maihaugen, Smelteverkstomta i Odda (samarbeid med Leander Djønne), Transition Gallery London og Atelierhof Kreuzberg. Korff Lofthus går i dialog med heimstadmalarane i nyare norsk kunsthistorie- utifrå eit ynskje om å skildra omgjevnadene sine. I likskap med heimstadmalarane fremjar Korff Lofthus eit krav om å vera sentral og utvide den norske samtidskunstsfæren. Etter å ha budd i Hardanger den siste tida og flytta praksisen ut av byen er derfor val av lokalitet eit konkret kunstnarleg grep. Vidare er valet av motivkrets eit innlegg i diskursen om naturomgrepet. Element av samferdsle som vegbygging og tunnellar går att i fleire av arbeida. Biletet inngår i et prosjekt som er vist på Transition Gallery (UK) og Gallerie Entree i Bergen
Tor Einstabland The Eliminated Element: Desert #1 (2018) Photography / C-print UiA’s art collection
Photo: Ricardofoto
Tor Einstabland
A quest for freedom. For most of us, freedom is first and foremost a literary construction, and for some, also a replacement for God. Adapting to the norms of society is perceived by some as a constraint and a quest for something else. A form of yearning for freedom can also be traced in the artistry of Tor Einstabland. The exploration of identity, whether this concerns the role of the artist, artistic genre and style, gender, social conventions or political persuasion was central for his generation in the 1980s. In Einstabland’s expressions, one can trace a focus on identity and social convention themes, whilst at the same time see that he has created his own symbolic world. Travelling alone to unfamiliar places and countries has long been an artistic driving force for him. Einstabland has also, at various points, lived in Warsaw and Paris. This quest to find motifs that have elements of interpersonal psychological factors is an aim for the artist. The challenge is to further transform this experienced feeling via photography and other forms of media. In the series, News from the Subconscious, his search for a concretisation of what the artist considers to be “psychological mechanisms” emerges. By locating his own memories about news stories, he creates fictional news stories in his artistic expression. This could be regarded as a commentary to our visual media reality which, following the internet, has in many ways changed the function of our memories. The theorist Mette Sandbye has, in addition, theorised photographic memorials in her book Mindesmærker. She writes that time and remembrance in photography, in spite of digital development, has the opportunity to create fictive pictures in which we are continually brought into a state of
excitability regarding photography’s representation of the past. In Mindesmærker, Sandbye addresses the question of this realism, which she associates with the way in which photography depicts time, remembrance and storytelling. These themes in particular have, during the last decades, been central to contemporary art, where art photography has played an important role. Photography can, in this way, function as a stimulant to a process of remembrance – a memory. In light of his mode of thought as art director and director, the term was applied in Tor Einstabland’s productions. On many of his trips abroad, such as, for example, his journey to Kuwait, he finds the perfect location in which the drama can play out and the picture be created. After having exhibited the work Taxi Driver at the Høstutstillingen in 2013, Tor Einstabland has further developed this theme in a video installation. In doing this, he aims to touch upon all of the sensory organs of the viewer. In his last project, The Eliminated Element, we can clearly see this point of contact between memory, the inner, and the outer realms. A childhood memory, or “the eliminated abstract object” is combined with a landscape from Kuwait, and in the result, something new emerges with a hope for a focus on elimination. At the same time, everything crystallises into a scene which is outside our everyday visual experience, and which develops into something else. It can almost be regarded as an archive. By pure chance, waste from abandoned industry found its way to the artist’s childhood home and is now deconstructed as a metaphor for the artist’s project, The Eliminated Element. The story of the years and personal memories connected to this surprisingly abstract object are rendered visible in a new context. The feeling of being eliminated and ignored in society could be one of the interpretations here, but the reading is up to each person individually.
Kjell Nupen Uten tittel (1993) Oil painting on canvas KORO
Kjell Nupen (1955-2014) was one of Norway’s most prominent and popular visual artists. Over the course of 40 years, his production of paintings, graphics, sculptures, installations and glasswork was considerable. Nupen completed his artistic education at Kunstakademiet (1972), and later in Düsseldorf. During the course of his education, he came into early contact with a political artistic environment which was rendered visible through his ability to thematise contrasts with material oppositions. His political engagement in the 1970s was inspired by the German artistic environment and political radicalism. In this period, Nupen wished to awaken the public. The visual subjects were generally violent, and this theme of death came to be an important part of Nupen’s production as a rejoinder to the suffering of the world. Another subject which he revisited during the 1970s was a running animal – a metaphor for the disturbing and changing spirit of the age in the 70s, inspired by the media reality of the time. During the 1980s, however, a change came into his artistry. Nupen moved from a political focus to a more meditative one. The formats became larger and the colours more striking, with archaic symbols and blocks of text. Aside from paintings, Nupen also produced the sonamed “Nupen construction” by the harbour in Kristiansand (1991). The surrounding sculpture park contributes to opening up Kristiansand to the sea. In the same park, we also find one of his ceramic pots. Nupen’s pots are in the Danish tradition, which can be traced back to Neoromanticism. The references in this period were usually to Romanticism and to a mythical base. Earthy tones and rose painting elements mark out a new period in Nupen’s artistry from 1995. Old signs and symbols were put together to make a new whole. This also reflects the characteristic of the artistic scene in the 1990s, where there was a total freedom and disposition of genres united in a crossover. By utilising applied arts together with painting, the artist at once challenged the terms “contemporary craft” and “visual arts”. Such montages are furthermore associated
Photo: Jørn H. Moen, Dagbladet
Kjell Nupen
Kjell Nupen, Uten tittel (1993), oljemaling pĂĽ lerret, KORO
with the Berlin Dadaists of the 1920s, who were groundbreakers with their montage techniques involving different forms of media from the art world. The principle of the montage centres around the idea that combination of two pictures gives rise to a third meaning, which was not inherent in each of the two original pictures. The reactions to this new development of rose painting in Nupen’s artistry were divided, and he therefore received mixed reviews. However, it is the Uten Tittel pictures hanging at Campus Grimstad that are more in line with Nupen’s artistic style from the period early in the 90s, at which time he produced the aforementioned ceramic pots and the park installation.
Photo: Thomas Tveter
Leonard Richard
Leonard Richard has, since the beginning of the 1970s, established himself in the art world with his characteristic expressions and themes. The two-dimensionality that his work embodies has, nonetheless and in many ways, three-dimensional elements which can be associated with post-war workmen’s sheds, machine components, wall charts and interiors. These are moods inspired by the artist’s own childhood in Tvedestrand. Research is important for Richard, and in this exists a striving to reach an optimal form, position and colour temperature in the composition. Modernism, with its quest for the painting’s two-dimensional “flatness” and authenticity is reflected in Richard’s works. As he put it himself; “I am a painter, my paintings will not have any impact if they do not stand with artistic authority. A violinist who plays out of tune communicates nothing”. The title, Tidlig morgen i august is sober and retiring, as is the case with Richard’s other paintings. The painting is faint, strange, and exquisite. The massive frame exactly matches in relation to its subject matter. Richard’s figurative images of memory are not characterised by the intensity of the feelings of the moment, but rather by reflection. The subject is laboriously constructed; all of the items included have a place and are given clear contours. Nonetheless, there is consistently something evasive in Richard’s pictures. Something disturbing. An atmosphere that does not immediately allow itself to be explained.
Leonard Richard, Tidlig morgen i august (1984), oilpainting on canvas, KORO
Anne Karin Furunes Portrett III (2009) acrylic on canvas, perforated Hamsunfantasier
Photo courtesy of Galleri K
Anne Karin Furunes
Anne-Karin Furunes is a visual artist and a professor of visual art. Her education is from Kunstakademiet in Oslo, and architectural studies at NTNU, as well as additional educational training in the intersection between architecture and visual art. Since 1994, Furunes has consistently worked with different media; she covers a surface in black before perforating it with large and small holes. The technique creates a kind of delay in one’s perception of the subject matter. It emphasises that the pictures are not identical to their theme. The pattern which emerges unites the new pictures into faces, which are sometimes placed in front of natural elements. The aesthetic filter of points is used to draw the pictures into the artistic sphere and encourages lifting the works out of any social, political and historical reference and over into a discussion about the placement of these pictures within an art historic and art discursive frame. The pictures comprise several codes; one set of codes is connected to the genre of which they are a part, another to what these pictures can do with us as viewers, and a third is connected to the art discursive frame. The themes are often the naked face, and the pictures are formatted in such a way that the eyes are emphasised. The picture we see might remind us of an old computerised photograph where the resolution was often grainy and unclear. It is exciting for viewers to observe how the picture changes from pattern to picture when moving from close viewing to a few metres’ distance. In this borderland, the painting is challenged as a medium, whilst the photograph is also challenged in one and the same picture. The photographic production she utilises has an aesthetic which characterises passport pictures and other kinds of photography in which an exact likeness is essential.
Anne Karin Furunes, Portrett II (2009), acrylic on canvas, perforated, Hamsunfantasier
Identification is the most important function of pictures - a function which points towards two things: the use of the photograph to control the subject matter, and pictures as a means to carrying out a systematic exploration of individuals based on the theory concerning the connection between features, personal qualities and race. Furunes has previously worked with photographs based on archives associated with biological race research from the interwar years with the eugenics perspectives that this inspired.
Heidi Wexelsen Goksøyr from the series Under Overflaten (1999-2001) Photography UiA’s art collection
Photo courtesy of the artist
Heidi Wexelsen Goksøyr
Heidi Wexelsen Goksøyr (b. 1966) is trained as a joiner, and worked in NRK’s design department before studying at the Department of Photography at the University of Prague. She debuted as an artist at Høstutstillingen in 1993, at which she drew attention to herself for her extremely genuine and visual language. A striking number of Goksøyr’s projects relate to the three basic elements of water, air or soil, and most eye-catching is her fascination with water. We can notice references to surrealism in the artist’s work, whilst she also has a strong sense for formality and aesthetic qualities. The artist herself says the following about the art project Under the Surface: “I have dived underneath the water and find myself under the surface with camera and model. There is something alluring about water. Under water, you can find yourself to the side of our own existence. Above the surface, beneath the surface… a kind of magical world. The atmosphere is inward, slow, meditative, weightless, whilst at the same time I also experience a playfulness and power. The sounds become more muffled, you can hear your own heartbeat and there is a ringing in the ears. It is this message that I want to communicate. Working under water is demanding, and all the production has to be attended to between each dive. But two or three models at the same time is more demanding. The children, who were my models, were all fantastic and made it possible to realise my dreams and projects”. The pictures were made in the Mediterranean, with the first in 1999 and the second in 2001. The series Under the Surface was exhibited in the period 2000-2002 at Vestfold Kunstsenter Haugar, Galleri F15, Oslo Kunstforening and Christian Dam Galleri in Copenhagen. The pictures have been purchased by Norwegian and foreign collectors for public decorations.
Heidi Wexelsen Goksøyr, fra serien Under Overflaten (1999-2001), fotografi, UiAs kunstsamling
Photo courtesy of the artist
Kristin Wexelsen Goksøyr
Kristin Wexelsen Goksøyr graduated from Statens håndverk- og kunstindustriskole in 1992, and has since then worked as an artist. In her works, she uses a range of techniques and materials in order to create spaces that can inspire feelings of having come to another world – a world beside the real one. Early and simple lifeforms have, on several occasions, been the inspiration for her installations, sculptures and drawings. Goksøyr’s works can be seen as a play with the abstract. Organic forms, where the soft and the heavy but also, in some cases, the explosive, are often in focus. This can give the impression of something almost recognisable, perhaps a close-up view of something on a micro level, or something bigger. The works can be seen by many as beautiful, quiet and sensual, but at the same time disturbing. Goksøyr has held a number of solo exhibitions and participated in many collective exhibitions.
Kristin Wexelsen Goksøyr, Rom (2002), drawing on paper, UiA’s art collection
Photo: Thomas Tveter
Bertil Greging
Visual artist Bertil Greging (b. 1957) was born and brought up in Oslo. The inspiration for his works comes from his inner self, and the need to freely express himself in the working process is an aim in itself. He has worked with a number of different expressions; from strictly graphic drawings and paintings to colourful and expressive collages and paper works. Oil pastels, soft pastels, acrylic paints, graffiti spray, masking tape, pencils, brushes and collage glue are used in combination with one another in order to fashion compositions, lines, planes and colours. Some drawings are complete, whilst others are ripped or cut up in order to create a new whole within a different work. In many of the pictures, one can see the head as a form. Nonetheless, Greging does not work from any conscious theme, but is influenced to a great extent by Oslo, the city in which he lives and works. For example, lines and strokes on a façade, a paper note hanging on a lamppost, or an exhaust pipe that forms a motif on the asphalt – these create a visual impression on the artist. This can later be expressed intuitively and spontaneously in a work. The process often starts with a little paper note or a line, and is built up layer by layer. The pictures are expressive in their manifestation, but the result is never by chance. The collages emerge through a process in which the different parts are moved around and fastened temporarily with tape before they, after careful evaluation, are glued permanently onto the background. The sketch is, in contrast to earlier periods, now eliminated from the process. The distance between idea and completed work should be as short as possible.
Bertil Greging, Braincut drawing (2017), drawing/collage, UiA’s art collection
Torill Nøst Naeem I, Naeem II, Naeem III (1999) Photography KORO
Irene Nordli Eggevegg (2017) Porcelain UiA’s art collection
Irma Salo JÌger Den Hemmelige Skrift (1968-72) Enameled glass UiA’s art collection
Photo: Thomas Tveter
Irma Salo Jæger
Salo Jæger has, in the course of her life, left her mark on modernist painting with her extensive body of work. During her activities, she has built up a broad theoretical basis of knowledge of geometry and colour theory, and she enjoys a high level of appreciation within the artistic community. Jæger consistently uses oil colours and tempera, the latter of which is a mixture of egg, varnish and water. She knows these old binding agents’ refractive qualities, and knows by experience how to bring the colours alive. At the same time, the working process is steered by intuition and the will to seek out the unknown. In 1968, she won the competition and was allowed to decorate the auditorium of Sørlandets Tekniske Fagskole in Grimstad with her 19.5 metre-long non-figurative frieze Den Hemmelige Skrift. This work is a monumental non-figurative enamel piece. It is painted in the primary colours, red, yellow and blue, with elements of white, black, pink and slate. The glass is Venetian, and has an intense clarity of depth. The colours are organised in geometric fields of different sizes and with different shapes which are in dialogue with one another. Sometimes, the colours cut across one another; sometimes they harmonise perfectly. In total, the frieze comprises 18 components which interlock and make up a long, rhythmic sequence which can be read as a colourful and secret roll of writing. Sørlandets Tekniske Fagskole wished, on the other hand, for a decoration that they could understand at first glance, and therefore protested against Jæger’s Den Hemmelige Skrift. The students’ protests were, however, not acted upon, and the work was installed in the school’s cafeteria in 1972. But the commotion surrounding this decorative piece was not over yet. In order to improve the acoustics
Irma Salo JÌger Den Hemmelige Skrift (1968-72), Enameled glass, UiA’s art collection
of the room, vertical wooden beams were installed on the wall over the frieze. The dark wood jarred visually to a considerable degree with the clear glass fields of the frieze and its horizontal direction of reading. JĂŚger was not happy with how the decoration had come to work visually. The changes of use in the room resulted in the frieze ultimately being taken down and placed in storage. It was only when Campus Grimstad was being planned that Den Hemmelige Skrift was to receive its well-deserved renaissance.
Photo courtesy of the artist
Regien Cox
Life, for many, is about the experience of different kinds of meeting with other people, as well as building relationships between the things that are close and those that are far away. In light of relational meetings, memories are formed which may well return to us as we age, sometimes to a greater extent than otherwise. Identity and values are not created in a vacuum, but through interaction, contact, and often inter-cultural meetings. Spending time between the different spheres which overtake us is something that Regien Cox utilises in her artistry. Cox collects her personal memories in a kind of time capsule, either by saving physical things or in terms of her inner memories. These are brought forth again and explored afresh in the form of a visual expression. The memories might be connected to her childhood in the Netherlands, experiences from her travels, personal meetings with people and so on. A memory from the past can once again be reshaped so that it suddenly becomes something else. The memories are visualised through geometric shapes. The point of departure is the material, whilst the process leading up to the final result might vary. There is no right answer here. It is the material that usually leads on, whilst the memories can reshape the material’s starting point into something else; it is the unconscious that steers the process.
Regien Cox, Dagbokhus (2014), collage/textile/wood, UiA’s art collection
Regien Cox Dagbokhus (2014) collage/textile/wood UiA’s art collection
Jan Arve Olsen Echos (2015-17) Photography UiA’s art collection
Jan Trygve Fløysvik Sun Rays (2017) Oil painting on plywood UiA’s art collection
Photo courtesy of the artist
Jan Trygve Fløysvik
Fløysvik’s works are made during an analytical and planned working process in which the subjects allude to technology, biology and structural conditions. He takes a constructivist approach to the complex space which has built itself around us. A micro-macro cosmos, perhaps on the verge of collapse. Fløysvik manages to create an original expression that is both associative and ambiguous. His paintings can be interpreted on both micro and macro level, on the one hand as a picture of space, or on the other of the body’s cells or microbes. Some of the round pictures can also be interpreted either as a network of nerve fibres or as constellations. Another characteristic element of the later subjects are the round forms bound together by lines which can remind one of driving belts or machine components. This, again, throws up associations with early modernism’s kinetic art of which mechanical and moving parts often functioned as the point of departure. The rotating elements, for example, recurred in Marcel Duchamp’s early experimental film Anémic Cinéma (1925/26) and his constructionist Rotorelief (disques optiques, 1935). For Fløysvik, it is, however, not the movement that is central, but rather the illusion of movement. The artist is concerned with the relationship of tension between things and illusions, something which, amongst other things, leads to an emphasis on the physical form of the painting. One consequence of this is that the pictures’ boundaries sometimes move beyond the traditional rectangle format. The paintings are often constructed from both geometric and organic forms, diverse variants of the circle and the ellipse.
In terms of painting technique, the different pictorial elements appear as clearly demarcated surfaces, without expressive strokes or great variations in the texture of the painting. At the same time, an illusion of movement is created because the shapes are arranged in a rhythmic pattern. The pictures can be seen as cinematic. One has the illusion of cinematic sequences which are suddenly stopped, as if by a spontaneous pressing of the DVD player’s pause button. These sequences could be associated with astronomical and evolutionary themes. In studying the paintings, one can get the impression of a galactic system assuming new forms. The process in the studio conveys an echo of the macrocosm, translated and distilled into formal abstractions. The untraditional formats and segments, connect to the precise placement of the visual elements, gives the pictures highly interesting and sometimes ambiguous spatial effects. Large and small holes move, axes are stretched, surfaces are displaced and manipulate the visual plane. The literary and metaphysical expression is balanced in a striking fashion. Fløysvik’s paintings reveal a unique vision. They can, without having any direct parallels, bring about associations with many different eras and expressions.
Bjørn Krogstad Barnet drømmer (2018) Painting UiA’s art collection
Sandra Norrbin Närmare (2004) Oil pastels on paper UiA’s art collection
Arnfinn Haugen Uten tittel (1993) Latex paint and varnish on cut-out pinewood boards KORO
Š University of Agder / 2019 Information about the University of Agder’s art collection: uia.no/om-uia/organisasjonen/kunstsamlinga Design and print: BRKLYN Photograhy: Hugo Skarsten Larsen / BRKLYN