Exhibition - Return to sender // at Kunstplass

One image from Midnight Milk was a part of the exhibition Return To Sender at Kunstplass in Oslo (11.9. - 11.10.2020). The exhibition was curated by Ingrid Wisløff Aars and Oda Broch/Kunst på arbeidsplassen. Kunst på arbeidsplassen has got an amazing art collection, including four of my images.

Kunst på arbeidsplassen: https://kpa.no/

Kunstplass: http://www.kunstplass5.no/

Review by Heidi Bale Amundsen in Kunstkritikk

Les Heidi Bale Amundsen sin gode anmeldelse av utstillingen «Le Book Club» i KUNSTKRITIKK.

https://kunstkritikk.no/bordet-fanger-ikke/

Her er et utdrag fra anmeldelsen:

Det tredje kapitlet av Le Book Club ble lansert onsdag 29. januar, og står fremdeles. Denne delen av utstillingen tar utgangspunkt i Marie Sjøvolds siste fotobok, The Practice of Presence (2020). Den består av fire separate trykksaker i en svart boks, som hver utforsker et aspekt ved det erfaringsrommet som åpnet seg da Sjøvold holdt seg unna Internett og sosiale medier i ett år. På Fotogalleriet presenteres verket som miniutstillinger på fire bord, som hvert legger ulike premisser for leserens erfaring av verket. Det første bordet inviterer de besøkende til å hengi seg til en intim interaksjon med verket. Det andre bordet åpner for at man skal utforske verket sammen med andre. Det tredje bordet presenterer fotoboken i statisk form, med hver delpublikasjon åpnet og glasset inn på et gitt oppslag. Det fjerde bordet inviterer på sin side de besøkende til å åpne hver delpublikasjon på det oppslaget som tiltrakk dem mest, og legge det igjen til neste leser som ledd i en utstilling i bevegelse.

Vandringen fra et bord til et annet skaper en endring i lesesituasjonen som i sin tur virker inn på erfaringen av The Practice of Presence, og dermed på fotobokens mening. Hva denne meningsforskyvningen består i, er ikke alltid så lett å artikulere, men over tid blir den produktivt sansbar. Le Book Clubs tredje kapittel fremstår dermed som en utforskning i fire deler av fotoboken som erfaringsrom – et perspektiv som er påfallende fraværende fra fotobokdiskursen, selv om moderne fotobokpraksis for en stor del handler nettopp om å utforske relasjonen mellom bokobjektet og leseren, og altså fotoboken som erfaring.

Read Heidi Bale Amundsens great review of the exhibition «Le Book Club» in KUNSTKRITIKK.

https://kunstkritikk.com/photobook-unbound/

The third chapter of Le Book Club was launched Wednesday 29 January and is still on. This part of the show is based on Marie Sjøvold’s most recent photobook, The Practice of Presence (2020). It comprises four separate print publications set in a black box, each exploring a particular aspect of Sjøvold’s experience of staying away from the Internet and social media for one year. At Fotogalleriet, the work is presented as miniature exhibitions arranged on four tables, each imposing a different set of conditions for the reader’s experience of the work: the first table invites visitors to engage in an intimate interaction, with stools set apart; the second table opens up the opportunity to explore the work with others; the third table presents the photobook in a static form under glass, with each of the four publications opened to show a particular spread; the fourth table in turn invites visitors to open each of the four publications to the page that attracted them the most, leaving it open for the next reader as part of an ever-changing exhibition.

Passing from one table to the next introduces changes to the reading situation, which in turn affects our perception of The Practice of Presence, thereby affecting the meaning and significance of the photobook. These shifts in meaning do not always lend themselves to easy articulation, but over time it becomes productively palpable. As such, Le Book Club’s third instalment becomes an exploration in four parts of the photobook as an experience – a perspective that is conspicuously absent from the photobook discourse even though contemporary photobook practices are largely about exploring precisely the experiential relationship between the book-object and the reader.



Review by Mona Pahle Bjerke

“Et av de flotteste prosjektene i Henie Onstad kunstsenters utstillingen «Norsk dokumentarfotografi» er Marie Sjøvolds «Om natten er alle alene.» Sjøvold gir dokumentarfotografiet noe poetisk og magisk.”
— Mona Pahle Bjerke

Newsletters

The last year I was logged off social media as a part of a book project I am working on. Cutting myself off ways of getting information, I came to appreciate newsletters in a new way. Starting this summer I will start to send out newsletters when I feel like I have something I want to share about my work and living as an artist. Naturally I will share upcoming exhibitions, artist talks and book releases, but also share thoughts and pictures from my work process. If you would like to get a newsletter from me, please sign up here:

Bondfire: Heaps of words

I will be present at Fotogalleriet in Oslo together with these artistes:Marte D. Jølbo, Christian Tunge, Morten Andersen, Line Bøhmer Løkken, Terje Abusdal, Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson, Christina Leithe Hanssen, Nina Strand, Charlie Fjätström, Fin Serck Hanssen, Marie Sjøvold and Tiago Bom.

June 15th, 11.00-17.00.

Come and we will talk about and saw photo-books together.

Fotogalleriet writes:

Fotogalleriet invites you to join us for an early St. Hans celebration! Do not miss the opportunity to listen to interesting artist presentations and the chance to get yourself some nice photobooks ahead of the summer holidays.

Dear fire fighters,

If you are reading this invite, you’re welcome to join us but only for listening in to incredible stories. We are preventing flames as much as you are, or to say it better, we are committed only to flames which are allowing people to think freely; our flames are only figurative and not material, and hopefully they just provoke change.

For this reason we prefer to sit down around an imaginary bonfire – rather than a real one (we all know well these times are getting tougher as the atmosphere is dry; but we can still have the food and fun of a real gathering)– while longing for the arrival of the midsummer night to celebrate with tales, meditation, stories and life adventures fearlessness, courage, and the unforeseen of life.

We have an incredible cluster of artists lined up for the occasion, and we look forward to honour antirepressive, scandalous and unorthodox believes (and all that lies in between). We respect photobook’s textuality and visuality in all of its forms, and we thank Mr. Gutenberg for his invention (we know he didn’t think of photobooks already of course, but quasi) which flooded Europe with books, as much as with manifest disruptive ideas intermittently carrying real power for change.

This is a chance to own a book, take care of it and preserve it for the future and hold home a testimony to the power of ideas: let’s make sure no danger will ever come near a photobook.

Long life to ideas!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/events/2326487004...