Foyer and Food Special: Oslo Apiary exhibit work by Victoria Günzler
8 Dec 2014 20:00
Wergelandsveien 17
Foyer work
The foyer exhibit revolves around the unique mix of food production, art practices and architecture that characterizes Kunstnernes Hus. The collaboration between Victoria Günzler and Oslo Apiary momentarily transforms the main stair case of Kunstnernes Hus into an eating vessel. A stream of honey runs down the banister of the museum’s main marble stairs, ending in a wax bowl that springs from the foyer floor. Visitors are offered loaves of bread and marble imitating ceramic plates, and has to wait patiently for the slow moving goodness before helping themselves.
The piece consists of several elements that each thematize the encounter between Oslo Apiary and Kunstnernes Hus as a place, physically, architecturally and institutionally: The rooftop bee yard and its liquid produce, the bowl made of bees wax, the marble banister and floor, the “marble” plates, that resemble crumbs of the house that has come of and that the guests are invited to take home with them, and the guests themselves. Visitors interaction with Victoria Günzler installation is where Kunstnernes Hus’s identity as a place and Oslo Byrøkt’s practice intersect.
The art work is about serving and sharing a meal, but it also touches on more fundamental questions about how the architectural and institutional framework sets up a playing field for the users. What kind of behavior does the gallery invite and what conventions and habits do we associate with visiting an art gallery? What kinds of self-censoring “table manners” do we embody in a institute like Kunstnernes Hus? The work operates on this general level, in the way it transform the staircase into a food serving utility, the lobby floor into a plate, and expands the existing conotations of the space by explicitly and implicitly inviting new kinds of behavior. Oslo Apiary’s exhibit is a Slaraffenland-ish invitation to ponder our own behavior, our immediate surroundings and our expectations of the familiar.
Please note that the installation will turn the banister and stairs into a wet, sticky landscape with slippery steps and grip surfaces. Mind your step. Hold onto your loved ones.
Victoria Günzler (b. 1986, Oslo, Norway) recently graduated with an MA in Visual Arts from the ceramics department at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She also has previous education in furniture and product design. She alternates between her practice as a ceramic artist and working as a product designer. Her works contemplates on what kind of relationships we have with everyday objects, and encourages a reflective approach to the objects that surrounds us.
Oslo Apiary is a cultural entrepreneurship run by Marius Presterud (b. 1980) and Mikkel Dagestad (b. 1990), that uses rooftop beekeeping as its platform. With Oslo Apiary Marius and Mikkel hopes to keep livestock in an urban environment, commission eco-art projects, and tie together people with creative practices with the goal of discouraging generic city lives and spaces. If you would like to do collaborate work with Oslo Apiary, send them a little mail describing your project idea along with some examples of previous work. Things that currently fascinates them is Kunstnernes House’s identity, the possibilities of site specific installations, launching a streaming service from their apiary, transferring graphic elements onto our rooftop equipment, and div. wax works.mail@osloapiary.com
