What’s on?

Maia Urstad – sound / Lars Ove Toft – video installations

Etter alle solemerke is a comprehensive work developed especially for the gallery space at Kabuso.
The room’s format, acoustic sound and view, are important participants.

The work consists of the following elements:

Audio for 21 speakers played from 3 positions.
Video work for 9 screens and 2 window projections.
2 mechanical sound objects.
One interactive speaker object.

Maia Urstad is based in Bergen, working at the intersection of audio and visual art. She has exhibited all over the world, latest at 14th edition of Media Arts Biennial in Santiago, Chile, and at Hardanger musikkfest in Lofthus, Hardanger. She was the City Sound Artist of Bonn 2017, and was awarded “Rune Brynestad’s memorial Grant”, in 2019. She was educated at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts, and has been an active contributor to the Norwegian and international contemporary art scene since the mid 80ties.

Lars Ove Toft is director of BEK – Bergen Center for Electronic Art. In his artistic work he works with video installations, sound and lighting design and builds interactive instruments. The main emphasis of the work is done in collaboration with other artists and musicians, most recently with performance and installation at PROA in Buenos Aires and Penghao Theater in Beijing. Lars Ove Toft lives and works in Bergen, Norway.

Vestlandsutstillingen (The Westland exhibition) is a touring exhibition since 1922. It is an annual Open Call for artists that holds a connection to Western Norway. The mission is to reflect todays art scene from a local perspective. Originally juried by artists it has since 1998 been annually appointed a curator.

Artists:
Ananda Serné, Catalina Aguilera, Eli Maria Lundgaard, Hans-Marius Pilskog Giske, Inga S. Søreide, Jan Kåre Ruud, Matias Kiil, Marit Silsand, Sofia Heinonen, Sofia Eliasson, Steinar Haga Kristensen, Thor Tao, Tore Winsents, Urd Pedersen, Vilde Salhus Røed

Vestlandsutstillingen 2020 explores the quintessential ‘Norwegian’ in relation to the quintessential ‘international’ in contemporary art. The Norwegian west coastal landscape is inherently vibrant, with a heavy association to the era of national romanticism, which is visible to the area’s artists at all times and thus inevitable.

Curator Elise By Olsen takes interest in how the landscape and its history sculpts art to this day. Simultaneously, we’re living in a time where participating in artistic discourse outside of one’s local existence is possible. In the wake of a digital revolution, which is free from the mental and physical boundaries of time and space; is it possible to rethink and recontextualize national romanticism today? As a response the curator has selected artists who still engage in close dialogue with their surroundings – through organic processes, time-consuming methods and solid materials. Vestlandsutstillingen 2020 rejects expectations of curatorial unity and geographical affiliation in favour of spontaneous, and surprisingly analogue, tensions between materials, works and the audience.

>>> Read more about Vestlandsutstillingen