Marit Følstad
12 Apr - 06 May 2012
MARIT FØLSTAD
Something in the Way
12 April - 6 May, 2012
For her first solo show at LAUTOM, Marit Følstad has created a new video installation with the title Something in the Way. The title is taken from the seemingly last song on the album Nevermind from 1991 by Nirvana. However, the track called Endless, Nameless was intended to appear at the end of Something in the Way, but it was accidentally left off initial pressings of the album. When the band discovered the song's omission, Kurt Cobain called the music-mastering engineer, Howie Weinberg, and demanded he rectify the mistake. Weinberg complied and added about ten minutes of silence between the end of Something in the Way and the start of Endless, Nameless on future pressings of the album, thus creating one of the more famous ghost tracks in rock history.
For her first solo show at LAUTOM, Marit Følstad has created a new video installation with the title Something in the Way. The title is taken from the seemingly last song on the album Nevermind from 1991 by Nirvana. However, the track called Endless, Nameless was intended to appear at the end of Something in the Way, but it was accidentally left off initial pressings of the album. When the band discovered the song's omission, Kurt Cobain called the music-mastering engineer, Howie Weinberg, and demanded he rectify the mistake. Weinberg complied and added about ten minutes of silence between the end of Something in the Way and the start of Endless, Nameless on future pressings of the album, thus creating one of the most famous ghost tracks in rock history.
With a broad spectre of references, from rock history to baroque portrait painting, Følstad creates exhibitions that aspire to seduce all our senses. With light, sound and video she creates atmospheric installations. Her works are abstractions of small details that catch her interest, on the street, at home or in her studio. A graffiti tag on a wall, the shapes her hair makes in a video still, the waveform visualising digital sound, but the origin of these shapes are not really important, they are hidden backdrops, it is the transformations themselves, what they become, and what new associations created by the viewer that gives her works their 'raison d'être'.
Marit Følstad makes individual art works that are installed site-specifically to form a total installation. She treats the exhibition site in the same manner as she processes the timeline in her videos. With the use of high-speed photography and slow motion, she creates hyperreal movements where every minute detail becomes highlighted. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard developed in his time the term 'hyper reality' to explain the virtual reality that simulates "something that never really existed". The video Something in the Way is presented as a triptych of a simple movement, like slowly moving portrait paintings, where the subject, herself, and the simple turn of the head is transformed into a majestic and meditative event. And as the head in the video slowly turns to face us, looking us in the eye, the focus is shifted from the 'I' in the video, to the spectator’s subjective body within the gallery room. The feeling of being in a virtual world can be felt in her installations, time and space seems to dissolve, and it becomes unclear who is looking at who.
For this exhibition Følstad collaborated with musician and composer Svarte Greiner (Erik K. Skodvin). His musical contributions create an opportunity to go deeper into the formal and visual aspects of the works. The soundtrack forms the structural framework for the experience of time in the exhibition.
Marit Følstad (1969) is born in Tromsø, Norway, and lives and works in Oslo. She holds a BA from Glasgow School of Art in Scotland and a Master from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the USA. Her solo show No Strange Delight is currently on display at the The Art Museum of Northern Norway in Tromsø, and later this year she will participate in the group show Desire at Bergen Art Museum in Bergen, Norway
Marit Følstad wishes to thank Lars Christian Reinsborg, Hans Terje Flatlandsmo and Mike Harradine.
Something in the Way
12 April - 6 May, 2012
For her first solo show at LAUTOM, Marit Følstad has created a new video installation with the title Something in the Way. The title is taken from the seemingly last song on the album Nevermind from 1991 by Nirvana. However, the track called Endless, Nameless was intended to appear at the end of Something in the Way, but it was accidentally left off initial pressings of the album. When the band discovered the song's omission, Kurt Cobain called the music-mastering engineer, Howie Weinberg, and demanded he rectify the mistake. Weinberg complied and added about ten minutes of silence between the end of Something in the Way and the start of Endless, Nameless on future pressings of the album, thus creating one of the more famous ghost tracks in rock history.
For her first solo show at LAUTOM, Marit Følstad has created a new video installation with the title Something in the Way. The title is taken from the seemingly last song on the album Nevermind from 1991 by Nirvana. However, the track called Endless, Nameless was intended to appear at the end of Something in the Way, but it was accidentally left off initial pressings of the album. When the band discovered the song's omission, Kurt Cobain called the music-mastering engineer, Howie Weinberg, and demanded he rectify the mistake. Weinberg complied and added about ten minutes of silence between the end of Something in the Way and the start of Endless, Nameless on future pressings of the album, thus creating one of the most famous ghost tracks in rock history.
With a broad spectre of references, from rock history to baroque portrait painting, Følstad creates exhibitions that aspire to seduce all our senses. With light, sound and video she creates atmospheric installations. Her works are abstractions of small details that catch her interest, on the street, at home or in her studio. A graffiti tag on a wall, the shapes her hair makes in a video still, the waveform visualising digital sound, but the origin of these shapes are not really important, they are hidden backdrops, it is the transformations themselves, what they become, and what new associations created by the viewer that gives her works their 'raison d'être'.
Marit Følstad makes individual art works that are installed site-specifically to form a total installation. She treats the exhibition site in the same manner as she processes the timeline in her videos. With the use of high-speed photography and slow motion, she creates hyperreal movements where every minute detail becomes highlighted. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard developed in his time the term 'hyper reality' to explain the virtual reality that simulates "something that never really existed". The video Something in the Way is presented as a triptych of a simple movement, like slowly moving portrait paintings, where the subject, herself, and the simple turn of the head is transformed into a majestic and meditative event. And as the head in the video slowly turns to face us, looking us in the eye, the focus is shifted from the 'I' in the video, to the spectator’s subjective body within the gallery room. The feeling of being in a virtual world can be felt in her installations, time and space seems to dissolve, and it becomes unclear who is looking at who.
For this exhibition Følstad collaborated with musician and composer Svarte Greiner (Erik K. Skodvin). His musical contributions create an opportunity to go deeper into the formal and visual aspects of the works. The soundtrack forms the structural framework for the experience of time in the exhibition.
Marit Følstad (1969) is born in Tromsø, Norway, and lives and works in Oslo. She holds a BA from Glasgow School of Art in Scotland and a Master from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the USA. Her solo show No Strange Delight is currently on display at the The Art Museum of Northern Norway in Tromsø, and later this year she will participate in the group show Desire at Bergen Art Museum in Bergen, Norway
Marit Følstad wishes to thank Lars Christian Reinsborg, Hans Terje Flatlandsmo and Mike Harradine.