13 Oct 2010

A Minor History of Creativity - Lund, Oslo & Copenhagen

Subject Matter

Participating artists: Mathias Kristersson (SE), Mikko Kuorinki (FIN), Ursula Nistrup (DK), Lina Selander (SE), Alejandra Salinas (ES) & Aeron Bergman (US)

Subject Matter is the second part of the exhibition project A Minor History of Creativity, which examines the artistic process in three stages: idea, object and the mediation of the art work. After a preliminary presentation of the processes and ideas before the object at Gallery Pictura in Lund, Sweden in the summer of 2010, the exhibition at Gallery BOA in Oslo will show the artists' completed works.

Unlike most group exhibitions, Subject Matter does not work within the framework of a particular argument or topic. The artists have been asked to comply with the three-part structure of the exhibition project but have otherwise been free to investigate areas of personal interest and indulge in the process of their artistic work.

Rather than having to accommodate to the authoritarian viewpoint of the curator, this strategy leaves the exhibition without an overarching theme for the works to support and thereby creates a space for the articulation of the individual artworks. If art is a way of comprising our understanding of the world, this exhibition presents a tangle of opinions and expressions instead of one single message; a democratic plurality of world-views.

As the project enquires into the artistic process it also raises questions about how this particular openness affects both the process and the artworks. The transparency may prompt courageousness or cautiousness in terms of ideas, choices, and actions of the artists or lead to a certain degree of staging in order to uphold a distance between the private and the public.

Furthermore, the exhibition investigates what kind of decisions the artists have made in order to translate their initial idea into a work of art. Is the relationship obvious and straightforward or has the work seemingly departed from the initial idea by way of another, stronger articulation, due to technical difficulties or simply by a change of heart?

A Minor History of Creativity spreads across three Nordic countries. The project comes to a close with a final event, Fall Behind, at Overgaden – Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen on November 27, 2010. The event will elaborate on the (after)life of the artwork as it becomes an object of mediation, discussion and critique.

The exhibition project is curated by Trine Friis Sørensen and organized in collaboration with Gallery Pictura / Skånska Konstmuseum in Lund, Gallery BOA in Oslo, and Overgaden – Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen.

A Minor History of Creativity is supported by the Nordic Culture Fund, The Danish Arts Council, Montana, IASPIS and Arts Council of Finland.