#280 Passage

This work is part of a three-parted sequence. They can be exhibited or sold individually, but do consider purchasing the whole group. It was made during the opening of my exhibition at Lørenskog Kunstforening where the visitors were invited to walk across the three frames lying on the ground, prepared with wet filler. The filler was covered with plastic to protect their shoes.

Movement and change are necessary ingredients for individuals as well as societies. People relocating is an opportunity for growth both for the travellers and the receiving culture.
The title can refer to the concept of Rite de passage. I believe that to experience art, the viewer has to step out of the standard perceiving modus and meet the artwork on its own premises. To experience something new is to move from one place of understanding to another. And there is no going back.

This work is part of a series called Platform. Works made by bodily imprints in frames with wet filler while placed on the ground. This is inspired by Gutai, the experimental Japanese art group from the 50s, who focused on matter, body and process, and especially one member Kazuo Shiraga who painted with his feet, suspended from the ceiling over the canvas. These imprints can be made by me or others, to document, or record, an event taking place at a certain point in time. The happening is becoming the act that creates a work of art and thus challenging the boundary between documentation of art and art itself.

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.