Exhibition – Loose and firm, Eline Mugaas

Sculptural objects - Photo - Video

Time characterises the objects in the exhibition "Løst inventar". The shelf no longer has the ability to carry anything. It is no longer possible for the blind to repeat the up-down movement. They both say dangerously towards the floor, as if they are too worn to fight gravity. Material fatigue and the decay of the body are visualised in object after object, as a downward movement where something hangs, becomes looser, spills out. It is a crumbling of something that was once solid, structured.

 

The objects signal decay, but do not idealise it. They stand as metaphors for a physical and mental state, where you inevitably have to decide whether this is something that concerns you. Something you want to fight against, or accept, with the freedom it may imply; the freedom to no longer fight against, to accept that the passing of time also concerns me.

The function of the objects as a metaphor for the physical is also emphasised in the word column:

ArmHULE

Pelvic floor

Chest BOX

Leg PLATE

Gauntlet

Heart CHAMBER

Hand FLAT

Capillary WALL

Muscle BAR

Nasal septum

Spinal column

EATING TUBE

Tear duct

Ear canal

EYE HOOK

It is as if the words form a sculpture; a vertebra or a column, where the physicality is in soft and vulnerable contrast to the harder, structural constructions, expressed in minuscules and CHAPTERS.

In this interconnection of nature and the constructed, an understanding of coherence emerges: That everything is part of a cycle in which time also has a formative role. We are born, live, decay and die, both we humans and what we create and surround ourselves with.

Eline Mugaas (b. 1969) is one of Norway's most prominent artists. She lives in Oslo and works mainly with photography, collage and sculpture. Mugaas has exhibited at a number of important venues, including the Astrup Fearnley Museum, the National Museum, MoMa, Malmö Konsthall, Kunstnernes Hus, Kunsthalle Zürich, Bergen Kunsthall, White Column N.Y., Kunsthall Oslo, Munchmuseet i bevegelse, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand Kunsthall, Sørlandet Kunstmuseum, Museum of Contemporary Art Novi-Sad, Haugar Kunstmuseum.

In 2013, fellow artist Elise Storsveen and Mugaas curated the exhibition "Hold stenhårdt fast på greia di - Kunst og kvinnekamp 1968-1989" at Kunsthall Oslo. Mugaas has worked closely with visual artist Siri Aurdal (b. 1937) for 10 years. The project has included several exhibitions, book publications and a re-creation of Aurdal's sculpture "Wavelengths" at the Venice Biennale (2017), among others, before it was given a permanent place in the new National Museum in 2022. Eline Mugaas received the Lorck Schive Art Prize 2019.

The exhibition has received support from Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and the Arts Council of Norway.