Talk
Open lecture: Mattias Härenstam and Mikkel B. Tin
This seminar is devoted to one familiar – though ambivalent concept, “Context(s)”. One artist: Mattias Härenstam and one philosopher: Mikkel B. Tin – each of them offering their interpretation on Context(s).
Wednesday April 22th 10-10.45
Open Lecture: Mattias Härenstam: On becoming a Tree
Brief description: The lecture will focus on my work with sculptures for the Museum of Natural History in Bergen and for an exhibition at the Vigeland Museum. Although quite different individually both these spaces are very specific contexts with an overwh elming history far from the presumedly neutral white cube of the contemporary art gallery. I will talk about how these spaces becamehelpful to work with and against, but also on the ideas, the processes, the materials and of spendinga lot of time in a co nstant cloud of sawdust.
10.45-11.00 Break End of Open Lecture, but pause on zoom for MAMBA-students
Thursday April 23rd 13.00-14.00
Open lecture: Mikkel B. Tin: Why bother about Contexts
Brief description: The Modernist idea of an autonomous art and of the artwork as a self-sufficient, material object has been duly challenged throughout the 20th century. But if instead the art work is a text in a context, then what kind of text is it, and where does it begin and end? And who defines the context of this text, the artist or the audience?
Guests/Lectures
Mattias Härenstam (1971 in Gothenburg, Sweden) was educated at Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen and at Städelschule Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main in the 1990´s. He works primarily with sculpture, installation, printmaking and film/video. In recent years he has had solo exhibitions at The Vigeland Museum, Stavanger Art Museum (both 2016), Norske Grafikere and Trafo Kunsthall (He has also participated in a large number of group shows in Scandinavia and beyond, such as Artists Film In ternational at Whitechapel Gallery, London (Avtrykk at National Museum for Art, design and architecture, Oslo (Exitus at Galerie am Körnerpark, Berlin (Frail Mighty at Stavanger Kunsthall (and Audiovisioni Digitali, Museo D´Arte Contemporanea, Rome (He was also one of the nominees for the Lorck Schive Art Prize in 2017 and participated in the award exhibition at Trondheim Kunstmuseum. In 2019 he completed two large sculptures for the Museum of Natural History in Bergen as p art of the permanent commission Minervas voice curated by Marit Paasche together with works by Marthe Ramm Fortun.
Mikkel B. Tin. PhD in phenomenology from Université de Paris XII. Previously Professor of Philosophy of Culture at the University of Southeastern Norway. Responsible for PhD courses in ‘Cultural theory’ and ‘Body-Based Practices’. Presently conservator-in-chief at Drammens Museum. In his books and articles, he studies body-based practices in the light of hermeneutics and phenomenological aesthetics, and more specifically folk art, outsider art, street art, social choreography, and art in public space. As editor and author, he recently published Faces Between Fact and Fiction. Studies on Photographic Portraits in Norway (Novus Press 2019), as well as The Nordic Model and Physical Culture (Routledge 2020).