Transition / Omvandling
02 - 24 May 2015
TRANSITION / OMVANDLING
2 - 24 May 2015
Valand Academy MFA Photography & Fine arts
Contributing artists:
Britt Anderson (USA), Johanna Arvidsson (SE), Flemming Ove Bech (DK), Maria Gordana Belić (SE), Kanchan Burathoki (NPL), Matilda Enegren (FI), Azadeh Esmaili Zaghi (IRN/SE), Jonas Esteban Isfält (SE), Mourl Ferryman (JAM/UK), Amanda Hart (USA), Laura Hatfield (CAN), Marie Helgesen (NO), Martin Hultén (SE), Stefan Jensen (SE), Tobias Kiel Lauesen (DK), Peter Kädergård (SE), Alanna Lynch (CAN), Hannah MacFarlane (UK), Bergthor Morthens (ISL), Simon Rydén (SE), Emelie Sjunnesson (SE), Andrei Venghiac (ROU).
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Göteborgs Konsthall inaugurates its traditional, annual spring exhibition of 22 master students in fine art and photography from Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg. Each work conveys its own individual idea and has its own aesthetic and artistic expression in its chosen technique, be it sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, video, performance, photography or sound piece. It is a varied palette of art forms that encounter one another, clash and co-exist within the spaces of the gallery.
The title of this year’s exhibition, Transition, marks, on a fundamental level, both an end point of two years of intense study and the beginning of a life-long artistic practice. Artworks which may have been confined to the studio are now exposed to an audience. What happens in this process of transformation when a work comes into being in the public eye? It is an artistic process – a transition – that requires courage as well as determination. The exhibition presents a new generation of artists that modify, manipulate, interpret, explore and question the world around them and their life situation. Here, the real world functions as a point of departure, a raw material that is transubstantiated into art.
The title Transition indicates flux, a process of change. Inevitably, transmutation means that something new is brought about at the cost of the disappearance of something else. To be in a state of constant change, divided between the past and that which has not yet occurred, can induce blindness to the speed of the present. It is easy to epitomise and draw conclusions of that which has passed, but perhaps more difficult to see where we are going. Here, art can play a significant role. If we look at the issues that concern this new generation of artists, we may gain a better understanding of our contemporary age, a clearer view of our surrounding world and the present moment and perhaps also glimpse our route into the future.
The works of these artists are centred on themes that appear poetic, imaginary, fleeting and more private than public. The artistic gaze is not primarily directed towards society but rather towards an interior, more private room, in which space, time and memories are transformed. The artists elaborate on problems that relate to the private experience, the remembrance of previous events, which are recalled and altered. Charged places, objects, spaces and recollections live on in varying forms. The past is examined and expounded in various guises in the light of the present, depicted via found objects, older materials and technologies that are given new functions. The artists seem to be preoccupied with rituals and acts, such as shredding paper or burying photographs. However, private and personal memories are not made public; they continue to be undisclosed or distorted beyond recognition. It is an attempt to understand and define the strange and the unknown, but the unspeakable remains unspoken.
The exhibition also delves into cultural heritages, exposing the effects of war in terms of long-standing psychological and physical traumas. National identity and belonging are some of the topics brought into the open in Transition. Careful examination reveals identities as constructed and changeable. Like archaeologists, the artists unearth not just the layers of their own identities but also those of others. Women excluded from historical archives fuse with contemporary women of popular culture. In this exhibition, the female body and the female experience generally appear as a political instrument, resistant to the exertion of power, racism and sexualised violence.
We hope that Transition will take our visitors on a journey into the same moods and states of mind explored by the artworks: nausea, beauty, discomfort, fear, exposure and deep fascination.
- Liv Stoltz, exhibition curator at Göteborgs Konsthall and curator of the exhibition
2 - 24 May 2015
Valand Academy MFA Photography & Fine arts
Contributing artists:
Britt Anderson (USA), Johanna Arvidsson (SE), Flemming Ove Bech (DK), Maria Gordana Belić (SE), Kanchan Burathoki (NPL), Matilda Enegren (FI), Azadeh Esmaili Zaghi (IRN/SE), Jonas Esteban Isfält (SE), Mourl Ferryman (JAM/UK), Amanda Hart (USA), Laura Hatfield (CAN), Marie Helgesen (NO), Martin Hultén (SE), Stefan Jensen (SE), Tobias Kiel Lauesen (DK), Peter Kädergård (SE), Alanna Lynch (CAN), Hannah MacFarlane (UK), Bergthor Morthens (ISL), Simon Rydén (SE), Emelie Sjunnesson (SE), Andrei Venghiac (ROU).
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Göteborgs Konsthall inaugurates its traditional, annual spring exhibition of 22 master students in fine art and photography from Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg. Each work conveys its own individual idea and has its own aesthetic and artistic expression in its chosen technique, be it sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, video, performance, photography or sound piece. It is a varied palette of art forms that encounter one another, clash and co-exist within the spaces of the gallery.
The title of this year’s exhibition, Transition, marks, on a fundamental level, both an end point of two years of intense study and the beginning of a life-long artistic practice. Artworks which may have been confined to the studio are now exposed to an audience. What happens in this process of transformation when a work comes into being in the public eye? It is an artistic process – a transition – that requires courage as well as determination. The exhibition presents a new generation of artists that modify, manipulate, interpret, explore and question the world around them and their life situation. Here, the real world functions as a point of departure, a raw material that is transubstantiated into art.
The title Transition indicates flux, a process of change. Inevitably, transmutation means that something new is brought about at the cost of the disappearance of something else. To be in a state of constant change, divided between the past and that which has not yet occurred, can induce blindness to the speed of the present. It is easy to epitomise and draw conclusions of that which has passed, but perhaps more difficult to see where we are going. Here, art can play a significant role. If we look at the issues that concern this new generation of artists, we may gain a better understanding of our contemporary age, a clearer view of our surrounding world and the present moment and perhaps also glimpse our route into the future.
The works of these artists are centred on themes that appear poetic, imaginary, fleeting and more private than public. The artistic gaze is not primarily directed towards society but rather towards an interior, more private room, in which space, time and memories are transformed. The artists elaborate on problems that relate to the private experience, the remembrance of previous events, which are recalled and altered. Charged places, objects, spaces and recollections live on in varying forms. The past is examined and expounded in various guises in the light of the present, depicted via found objects, older materials and technologies that are given new functions. The artists seem to be preoccupied with rituals and acts, such as shredding paper or burying photographs. However, private and personal memories are not made public; they continue to be undisclosed or distorted beyond recognition. It is an attempt to understand and define the strange and the unknown, but the unspeakable remains unspoken.
The exhibition also delves into cultural heritages, exposing the effects of war in terms of long-standing psychological and physical traumas. National identity and belonging are some of the topics brought into the open in Transition. Careful examination reveals identities as constructed and changeable. Like archaeologists, the artists unearth not just the layers of their own identities but also those of others. Women excluded from historical archives fuse with contemporary women of popular culture. In this exhibition, the female body and the female experience generally appear as a political instrument, resistant to the exertion of power, racism and sexualised violence.
We hope that Transition will take our visitors on a journey into the same moods and states of mind explored by the artworks: nausea, beauty, discomfort, fear, exposure and deep fascination.
- Liv Stoltz, exhibition curator at Göteborgs Konsthall and curator of the exhibition