Making Form meets artists with a strong relationship both to form and materials andto spiritual and sensual knowledge. This exhibition provides a new perspective on Sami artistic expression, traditions and development. It is a combination of recent, important key-stoneworks by a number of artists, loaned from RiddoDuottarMuseum’s art collection.
Making Form includes works by Silje Figenshou Thorensen, Geir Tore Holm, Rose-Marie Huuva, Randi Marainen, Elly Mathilde Novvale-Johnsen, Ann-Elise Pettersen Hyndøy, Raisa Porsanger, Alf Salo, Morten Torgesrud and Kristin Tårnesvik.
The exhibition Making Form focusses on art that is closely connected to materiality, form and practical knowledge. At the same time it showsattention to metaphysical, spiritual or immaterial values. This is art that can be considered together with the life forms, artistic practices and world view of Samisand other northern peoples. Less about reactive identity and realpolitik this is artthatmoves in otherways from the western dominating institutions and the struggle against them. Instead it is art that frees strength in a sort of political sensuality and that examines a type of resistance. Making Form shows art that is than says, that seeks sensuality and phenomenological truth more than epistemological correctness. Perhaps Making Form highlights the ethics of form in Sami (and arctic-northern) modernism.
Ten artists are represented in Making Form with works in various mediums. Part of the starting point for Making Form is Kristin Tårnesvik’s installation Feltarbeid. Twenty ballpoint pen drawings, consisting of simple lines on paper, are brought together in a hugematrix. Each line is copied, the repetition creating form in the same way that the meeting between forms creates new more complex forms.
Making Form also includes Silje Figenshou Thorensen’s Varanger-funnene where line and the drawing hand is challenged and tried out, but with archaeological drawings as the source. Rather than being repeated or imitated, the lines aredeconstructed or broken down. In Morten Torgesrud’s tight, reticent photography architectural elements are vacuously registered, creating tension between the photograph’s physical location and its generality. Raisa Porsanger’s installation Hexaëmeron/Muohtačalmmit shown in the exhibition consists of a cloud of reindeer skin and a painting painted directly on the wall. From RiddoDuottarMuseum’s art collection is Alf Salo’s illuminated colourful painting abstract form is transformed into deeply felt sensuality.
Thank you to Videokunstarkivet and Martin Johan Bengtsson.
Thank you to RiddoDuottarMuseum for lending the art works. This includes art works from Rose-Marie Huuva, Randi Marainen, Elly Mathilde Novvale-Johnsen and Alf Salo.
Making Form is curated by Hilde Methi and Jan-Erik Lundström.
Kristin Tårnesvik has received support from Statens utstillingsstipend.
