In the installation Silence Afterwards, black coal has spilled down and across the white space, as if a fall has come to rest. Coal has a particular ability to make time tangible, carrying with it a time span that exceeds human imagination. Within the black material, a distant biological past meets our own industrial present. Extracted from the depths of the earth, it has been transformed into energy, heat, production and movement – one of the fundamental conditions of industrial civilization's acceleration.
Variations of the installation have previously been shown by Evjen at different institutions under the title Untitled, leaving the material without a particular interpretive framework. Silence Afterwards, by contrast, opens onto an idea of time: something has happened, something has come to a halt, and we may find ourselves in what comes after. The title is borrowed from Rolf Jacobsen's poetry collection of the same name. In the installation, «afterwards» becomes a spatial experience – we are already there, in the aftermath.
Lars Staffan Evjen (b. 1945) is a Norwegian artist whose practice focuses primarily on drawing and installation. Selected solo exhibitions include Samisk kunstnersenter, Kunstmuseet KUBE, Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, and Bergen Kunsthall. His work has also been included in major group and collective exhibitions, including Bergen Open 1 at KODE, Nordic Drawings, and Greyscale/CMYK. Evjen's works are held in major collections including The National Museum, KODE, Kunstmuseet KUBE, and Northern Norwegian Art Museum.
