Exhibitions 2013

Skin, Flesh and Bone
Cao Hui // Feng Feng // He Yunchang // Ma Qiusha
Curator: Feng Boyi
Curatorial team: Wang Dong, Bjørn Follevaag & Malin Barth
04.10 - 20.01.13

The artists examine different aspects and issues of the body in their artistic production. Changes of time, the identification of, appeal for, and even the ideology about the human body explored. The exploration that takes place is not purely private nor purely Chinese, but closely linked to comparable conditions and situations, as well as to the general experience of what it means to be human.

Skin, Flesh and Bone

Thursday, October 4th 18:00
at Stiftelsen 3,14, Vaagsallmenningen 12

Please notice that the exhibition #RealLifeStories, also curated by Feng Boyi as well as Bjørn Inge Follevaag, opens at 19:30 at Stenersen, Rasmus Meyers allé 3.
Feng Boyi will make the opening speech for both exhibitions at Stiftelsen 3,14.

Friday October 5th:
> Debate “Artistic subject matters and its effect on society”
with curator Feng Boyi, exhibiting artists Cao Hui, Feng Feng, Ma Qiusha,
artist Morten Traavik, Rafto Foundation w/ Arne Lyngård and moderator Bergljot Jonsdottir.
Location: Gallery 3,14. Time: 17.30

The exhibition is supported by:
Hordaland fylkeskommune, Norsk Kulturrådet, Bergen kommune, OCA, Fritt Ord

Cao Hui "I´m Sorry". sculpture

Feng Feng "Golden Age". Gold plated bones

Cao Hui’s shaping of powerful contrast between the gentle and the sanguine can serve as a reflection on our plundering of nature during the process of so called “modernization.” The influence of modernization touches on every realm of human activity, and is particularly manifested in the epistemological worship of the infinite powers of the subject and the unbridled economic exploitation of natural resources, these being the soil that nourishes modernization.
The contradictions, paradoxes and even loss of control that are concealed behind the process of modernization produce “bizarre” results that are the very crux of the matter, and are what Cao’s creations take aim at and intend to derail.

Feng Feng draws from the powerful contrast of the materiality of the body and the symbolic nature of gold leaf, as well as the systematic dismantlement of the skeleton to reflect the fragmented world of today’s China. The decadence and terror of the skeleton, and the value and splendor of gold are all so direct and nakedly presented, and this directness reflects and mocks the state of existence in China – the constant pursuit of desire. He uses this to attain awareness and reflection of the abuses of the modernization process, through which he expresses the aspiration for a beautiful and fair sanctuary for mankind behind revelations and criticisms, declaring that material development in no way guarantees the fall of the spirit and the collapse of morality.

He Yunchang "One Meter Democracy". photographs

He Yunchang performance One Meter of Democracy, he had a 0.5 to 1 centimeter deep incision cut into the right side of his body, stretching one meter from his collarbone to his knee. A doctor assisted in this procedure, though no anesthesia was used during the entire process. Before the surgery, he held a satirical “Chinese democracy-style” vote, using the farcical methods of Chinese elections to ask the roughly twenty people present whether or not he should carry out the procedure. The final tally was 12 votes for, 10 against and 3 abstaining, passing by two votes. The process was shocking to watch. He used a self-abusive, self-mutilating method to push himself to the edge, near the brink of death, and attained a self-redemption of both spirit and flesh. Perhaps this is the price of democracy, and perhaps He Yunchang is using his own suffering to awaken and probe the languishing soul.

Ma Qiusha "We". video

Shimon Attie
"Sightings: The Ecology of an Art Museum"
video work
01.02. - 24.03.13

A multiple-channel video installation exploring the heightened moment of mutual encounter between art viewer and art object, between works of art and museum visitors and employees. The artist selected 40 objects from the collection of San Francisco’s de Young Museum and asked individuals to participate in a “dialogue” with a work of art, each taking an expressive gesture and gaze that embodied their emotional response to the art object. The tableaux were filmed with production values that are reminiscent of old-master paintings. Slow-motion photography, frozen gestures, and an unseen moving stage comment on the active/passive quality of the interactions.
For Sightings: The Ecology of an Art Museum also reveals the relationship between the diverse inhabitants of San Francisco, who have come to the city from all over the world, and the “world collection” of art objects in the museum’s collection. The work was originally created at the invitation of San Francisco’s de Young Museum.

Essay by Daniell Cornell, Collection Connections Curator >>>

Kunstreisen lørdag 23.02. kl. 17.30 i NRK P2
Programmet sendes i reprise mandag kl. 19.03 og tirsdag kl. 23.30
Podcast - Lydfil: http://nrk.no/podkast/
Nettsiden: http://nrk.no/programmer/radio/kunstreisen/1.10914232

Soft Turns / Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik
"Behind the High Grass"
stop-motion animation, 2011, 7:48 loop
01.02. - 24.03.13

Soft Turns is the collaborative effort of artists Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik. Currently based in Toronto, Canada they have been collaborating on video installation and stop-motion animation since 2006. The idea of an encounter with something, as an ever-changing space between the foreign and the familiar, the accessible and inaccessible, is a central theme of their practice.

Behind the High Grass is a project based on a travel book we once found by chance at a flea market in Berlin. When the artists rediscovered it in their image bank files six months later, all the text had been torn out, leaving only the sepia toned images and color plates, with an occasional, vague caption in German. From the images they could infer that the book featured two European travelers in South America, during the post-war era, and the artists initial interest was fueled by the often odd and exotic aspects of the photographs. Later they discovered that the book was titled Südamerika. Zwischen Parana und Rio de la Plata (a 1956 German edition) and was co-authored by two Czech travelers: Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund. As they slowly familiarized themselves with the travelers lives, excursion, and research the story of the book became inexhaustible with content. Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik became keen listeners, spectators, jotting notes, logging information, indeed, they themselves became travelers, within a deep forest of what was in the book, what it referenced and what it did not.

The brutality of adolescence is a theme that permeates the video works Ma Qiusha. In the process of growing up, adolescence in and of itself implies brutality. Adolescence is a special time in one’s life, one marked by a particular form of restlessness that is a product of dreams and evasion. Everyone must face such a stage in their lives; it is just that it manifests in different experiences and expressions within different living environments. This theme perhaps asks how this brutality of youth is manifested in the cultural contexts of different periods, and how the scars it leaves behind are transformed and expressed in the language of visual art.

From #4 Pingyuanli to #4 Tianqiao Beili, the artist holds a blade in her mouth as she faces the camera and tells about her experiences and important memories.

Us explores that no matter how we strive, every effort we make to figure ourselves out and to find the thread that ties us to the external world, we are actually using certain methods to cut those bonds.

Ana Rewakowicz
"Air_Condition"
inflatable installations
12.04. - 02.06.13

Artist talk
13.04.13 15:00

Over the last ten years Ana Rewakowicz have been working with inflatable objects exploring relations between temporal, portable architecture, the body and the environment. In contrast to the stable mass of monumental sculpture and architecture, her costumes and structures are air-filled, mobile and concerned with places and people that activate them. Incorporating materials such as rubber latex, polyvinyl, polyurethane, reversible metallic foil, fabrics, biodegradable polymers, fans and solar panels, she harness technology to build intimate yet paradoxically public experiences, and fashion them based on function. A belief in new technologies as an opportunity for social transformation that had inspired the architectural groups from the 60's Archigram (UK), Utopie (France), Haus-Rucker-Co, Coop Himmelb(l)au (Austria) still motivates me. As early as the 60's, these architectural groups were addressing the question of global vision and the relation between environment and technology, issues that remain central to the discussion about climate change at the present time. Rewakowicz is deeply concerned with the integrity of materials, processes and ideas, and she make objects that set a platform for social exchange and reflect on growing environmental complexities in the increased intensity of globalization.
Ana Rewakowicz most recent focus in her works involves the idea of interconnectedness between nature, humans and environment.

Ana Rewakowicz wishes to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Canada Council for the Arts for their financial support.

Eva Ljosvoll
"En Odyssé"
2011, video, 6 min. 25 sek., with sound.
12.04. - 02.06.13

Ellen Røed
'Skyvelære'
video, installations
13.06 - 11.08.13

Composed of the words sliding and knowing, the Norwegian term Skyvelære means caliper, a device for measuring distance.

In the exhibition Skyvelære Ellen Røed is reflecting on devices and procedures that are used in video art and in natural sciences. She considers various relationships involved in creating representations; field trips, story telling, gathering or capturing of data, measuring, calibrating.

A video camera is a prosthetic device that allows its user to capture and collect moving images from his or her surroundings. The camera can also turn into an evil mirror reminding its user that the world will always be beyond her reach, that she can never connect with the world that she is observing through it, even if that is presicely the gesture offered by the camera. This tension sets in motion a gravitational field of inquiry that has resultetd in this exhibition.

The exhibition is supported by Stipendiatprogrammet for kunstnerisk utviklingsarbeid, Kunst -og Designhøgskolen i Bergen, Bergen Kommune and BEK.

http://www.thankyou-verymuch.com/eng/ellenroed.html

News: Ellen Roed
Norsk: http://www.khib.no/norsk/aktuelt/2013/06
English: http://www.khib.no/english/news/2013/06/ellen-roeed

Kunstner Signe Lidén som viser et eget arbeid i Parabol (Lyddusj), en ustillingsserie kuratert av Lydgalleriet i passasjen nede på 3,14, har også samarbeidet med Ellen i to av verkene som vises på utstillingen. (please see sound)

If you stand perfectly still, you’ll see how quickly it passes!

Even if you don’t move you’ll be part of the flow. Even staying at home you’ll be part of the journey that moves everything around in the world. When you do as little as possible and try not to change, everything changes. Sometimes the less you do the faster the changes take place.

Odyssé is part of a series of works that investigates how time can be perceived.


Artist statement:
Eva Ljosvoll mainly works with video installations. The moving photography shows rather the consequence, than the story that caused the state. The non narrative moving image is close to poetry. The chronology is of no importance; the images are standing side by side and create a whole, like a chord that vibrates simultaneously.

Odyssé is among the works that investigates how time is perceived on a personal level. How time is experienced indicates the emotional state. What time could be, can also be investigated through an emotional state. Personal experiences of being present emotionally and mentally are always the artistic starting point. Some of the works handles trauma and shock experiences through analyzing how time is experienced. How individuals are related to categories like time and language, are main interests in her artistic practice. The individual makes these categories visible and the individual is at the same time created through language.

Eva Ljosvoll is educated at Bergen Art Academy, Weissensee Kunsthochschule in Berlin and Bergen University. She has participated in many group exhibitions and is among other things part of the collection of Bergen Art Museum.

Monday Begins on Saturday is the title of the first edition of Bergen Assembly, and takes the form of an international exhibition, publication, and symposium.

It is a critical meditation on the potentials and pitfalls of the evermore ubiquitous yet at the same time elusive notion of “artistic research.” The project takes its title from a novel by Soviet sci-fi writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky about a fictitious research institute staffed by a motley assemblage of fairytale beings and mad scientists who are trying to solve the problem of human happiness through magic. The first edition of Bergen’s new triennial is an oblique contemporary re-writing of this text as a multi-venue exhibition and book.

Published February 09, 2013
Written by Ekaterina Degot & David Riff

continue reading >>>

Andreas Siekmann & Alice Creischer, Untitled, 2012.
Digital photo still from video, 3 minutes.
Courtesy of Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin and KOW, Berlin. Photo by Minze Tummescheit and Arne Hector.

Monday Begins on Saturday
Bergen Assembly
International exhibition
31.08. - 27.10.13
Tickets:
- exhibition pass: unlimited entrance to all venues
for the entire duration of the exhibition: 100 NOK
- students & seniors: 80 NOK
- art students, children (0-16 yrs.)
& youth with Kulturkortet: free admission

LIFE IS THE ONLY WAY
International mixed media group show
Curated by Malin Barth og Annine Birkeland
Co-production between 3,14 and Bergen Kjøtt for Bontelabo
Exhibition at Bontelabo 2
23.08. - 27.10.13

Artist presentations:
Humberto Junca Casas
24.08.13 16:00

A K Dolven
06.10.13 15:00

The exhibition Life Is the Only Way is an amalgamation of independent strong voices by nine international artists. Its aim is to make clear the sustaining connection between contemporary art and contemporary life. This is art which ought to generate public debate on issues of the day and whose participative works will be diverse in regards to combining aesthetic genres.

Bokja: Hoda Baroudi & Maria Hibri (LIB), Judy Chicago (USA), A K Dolven (NOR), Gardar Eide Einarsson (NOR), Roza Ilgen (NOR/KUR), Humberto Junca Casas (COL), Selja Kameric (BOS-HERZ), Nalini Malani (IND), Lars Morell (NO), Cajsa von Zeipel (SWE) works span from visual formalism to the classical figurative in the poetic exploration and allegorical methods to address political and social realities. The Subject matters they address are gender issues, national borders and identity, localism verses globalism, areas of conflict and community, and the advantages and faults of progress.

The involvedness of the experience between individuals, groups, nations, social categories, genders and religions has been interwoven with globalization, encounters of personal narrations with collective experiences. Expectations, strains and losses have shaped the works on which the narrative of contemporary art is visible. All these issues inevitably reinforce each other and influence everyday life and human relations.

The artists are juxtaposed together, creating new points of view, and proposes new interpretations of the existing world and social relations.Art has the power to surpass geopolitical divisions transforming global community into a collective narrative web made by different personal stories that complete or overturn official narrations.

As a curatorial starting point for this exhibition Life Is the Only Way, was Shirin Neshat´s video work “Turbulet”. The work was to be timely exhibited as this summer of 2013 Norway will celebrate 100 years of true democracy. Norway was the first independent country in the world to introduce universal suffrage, with women and men enjoying equal democratic rights. Shirin Neshat will instead be featured with a solo exhibition that now is in the making for a time when the entire 6th floor at Bontelaboe will be able to be utilized.

At the same time as Life Is the Only Way, we will at a jointing space also feature 9 younger, local artists. The works project into the future, while holding the recent past close at hand.

Artist presentation by Humbert Junca Casas, Saturday 24.08 at 16:00

Artist presentation by Nalini Malani and AK Dolven in October to be anounced.
Additional program under the exhibition period will be continuously updated as to progress.

For futher information please contact Annine Birkeland at 98232163 and / or Malin Barth at 48042408

Exhibition hours: 12-17 Tuesday-Sunday. Mondays closed.

SPECTRA - Color in Light
Masaki Umetsu (JPN)
08.11.-20.12.13

“SPECTRA – Color in Light” is a time-based light art project, which is constructed with artificial light equipment as its material. Time-controlled structural light elements and natural light elements changing hour by hour make an abnormal “Lightscape” in the ordinary space. The phenomena light and color can influence a human’s spirit psychologically. Each time has a specific combination of colors to represent it.

Masaki Umetsu is Artist in Residency at USF Verftet in Bergen, November-December 2013.

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NB: At the Winter Solstice, on 21th December, when the sun turns, 3.14 will also turn Masaki Umetsu´s Spectra - Color in Light. We make it into a project in public space which will be visible on our facade from 11:00 to 23:00 every day at Vågsallmenningen until 5th January, 2014.

article in Bergens Tidende:
www.bt.no/bergenpuls/Snur-kunsten-med-solen-3027171.html#.UrQkuSd0nkc

Masaki Umetsu "SPECTRA-Color in Light"

SARKIS
From The Speed of Colors:
- in the beginning, the cry, 1998
- in the beginning, the end continues, 2005
video
08.11.-20.12.13

Munch 150 - a Celebration of Edvard Munch's work and significance.
www.munch150.no/no/Program/-in-the-beginning-the-scream

The artist brings into focus the permanence and fleetingness of artistic forms of expression. The viewer, transfixed, can follow how a watercolor brush dipped in water attempts to render a given artwork or depicts musical masterpieces.

"in the beginning, the cry", 1998, 3,05min
A white bowl with water is placed beside the reproduction of The Cry by Edvard Munch. Water colors that are similar to those on the painting are placed onto the water with a brush ... the colors mingle like one voice...

"in the beginning, the end continues", 2005, 4,33min
We see a bowl with water while the end of Unfinished Fugue (Contrapunctus 18) by Johann Sebastian Bach is played. Upon the end of the music four fingers colored red, blue, yellow, and green are dipped in the water and let the colors begin their journey.