Preview : Friday 10/09 19:00
(Hidden, or in limited view) “Wow/shit! Etc.”
Pause.
“Yes. It’s a beautiful space. (At least in that direction).”
The condensed story is finely tuned and adjusted through rows of accompanied first entries, (“and what a contrast”) Etc.
But to keep things fresh one would try to alter the synopsis a tiny bit every time: Introduce other facts rather than the imperative. (Buried log cabin facade/How to get pigeons out alive.) Though this proves difficult when the tracks are already laid out.
Little house: Old. (1840s, not 1857.) Back space: 1937.
Epitomization of Scandinavian Modernism, etc. (Apparently one of the earliest lumberyards in the city center, and now one of the last remaining. [Someone said, this claim has never been checked.])
House cut in two – in effect an amputation (to allow a driveway).
And never really patched up again. Basically left as a mess, (but not visible from the street).
The following questions will come up:
Do you rent it? Yes
Does the crane work? No (Obviously not)
How did you find it? Accidental
Does it get cold in the winter? Yes
Will you eventually paint it? No
And usually a couple of suggestions that are humbly rejected. And then always dreamy remarks on the infinite possibilities of the space.
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Dickens coined the term and put it in the mouth of Joe Gargery, an illiterate blacksmith from the marshes, where buildings are built and not drawn. Experiencing profane city architecture for the first time, he finds it disappointing, delicately drawn architectural imagery and real life facades hardly corresponding.
Addressing the same disparity between plan and execution, dream and factual possibilities, the building is taken as a point of departure. In all its potential.
Petter Ballo’s Burning House is a working oven built from the original iron gates left at Tøyenbekken 12 as 1857 moved in. Ballo cut up the iron sheets and welded a small house to be connected to an original chimney pipe in the hall’s ceiling. During the exhibition, wood paneling and beams replaced during renovation will fuel the oven. Le merveilleux chef-d’oevre de Séraphin tells the story of Séraphin and Plume who inherit a run-down house on the outskirts of Paris. The two friends erect a fantastic house filled with wonderful inventions, which soon finds itself in the path of a highway and is set for demolition. French illustrator Philippe Fix’ famous book was first published in 1967, and was released as Serafins makeløse mesterverk in Norway two years later.
Gordon Matta-Clark realized Conical Intersect in Paris, 1975. The site was at 27-29 rue Beaubourg using two buildings constructed for Mr. & Mrs. Bonnville in 1690. Which were among the cast to be demolished in a decade of Gaulist “renovation” of Les Halles. The project was focused towards the street, angled up with passers by as a silent “son-et-lumiere” / and non-u-mentally carved through plaster and time to mark the skeletal steel backdrop of the soon-to-be Centre Beaubourg.
Shane Munro and Ryan Siegan-Smith have made a colossal performative sculpture, The The Cloud, weighing in at 50 tons.
The 15-episode animated TV-series The Bakery of Blok by Zin Taylor features a cast of pieces of wood and dough, possibly on a mission to uncover the recipe for bread. The TV-series is presented along with sculptural elements arranged atop cubes arranged around the space. Based on instructions and lists for the necessary implements needed to make bread, the items record Taylor’s use of a constructed language, a fashioning of material into form.
Joints by Marianne Vierø is a set of objects defined by a traditional Japanese wood joining technique. While they are a traditional method for building, Vierø compares the joints to grafting cuts, which enable a branch of one plant to grow on the stem of another. Three photographs each titled Monoprint show amorphous columns made from wet clay. Installed in the corners of the gallery, the columns form useless supports for the gallery room.
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About 1857:
1857 is an artist-run gallery occupying a former lumberyard in Grønland, downtown Oslo.
Established in 2010 by Steffen Håndlykken and Stian Eide Kluge, 1857 aims to establish connections between the Norwegian art scene and young artists abroad. It is a place to convene and converge, receive, answer and honour contemporary art in Oslo.
Tøyenbekken 12
0188, Oslo
Norway
+47 22176050
electronicmail@1857.no
Hours:
Tuesday — Friday: 12 — 17
Saturday: 12 — 16
1857 is supported by Arts Council Norway
