Scandinavia sketchbook
Norway, August 2010
On a trip through Scandinavia with an alumni group from the University of Washington, Seattle with professor Terje Leiren (pictured, Terje Leiren@blogspot.com.)
An opportunity to travel through a spectacular landscape of fjords, glaciers, lakes, waterfalls and mountains.
Seen at the Art and Design Museum in Bergen
a show about taste and the marketplace. Contemporary
jewelry, sculpture and textile pieces made from ephemeral and unconventional materials like rubber and concrete were shown with ancient works from the collection such as fine ceramics and silver. A telling essay on the wall, for a museum show, about the influence of the marketplace on taste and the origins of taste-making and the interconnectedness of the market with the museum world. On the way in, at the top of a marble staircase, there was a classic figurative stained glass window, but wait, it had a red neon shape superimposed on it. Huh? It looked familiar, I stared for awhile, a star with a tail? No, a baby with a crown? OH I GET IT the Simpson's baby, Maggie. I couldn't find the artist's name or a card anywhere, and I can't read Norwegian but I thought it was terrific; a classic assumption piece with a contemporary baby, both powerful symbols in their time.
This was a brave show for a museum to host. The questions of what is art, what is beauty and who decides were answered, sort of.
Discovery of the monumental, knitted work of Heidi Kennedy Skjerve (www.heidi-kennedy-skjerve.com) about 10’ x 50’, Agnes Martin/fishnet–like
on a wall of the Fine Art Museum in Bergen.
She also does drawings on graph paper that look like weavings.
And the outside of the museum had a side wall that looked like this...
which was kind of like a wall in a village outside of Copenhagen that looked like this...
Where there were faces on the wall (electric outlets?) in the hotel like this...
and on the door at Carl Larsson's w.c. like this...
and a face on a street in Stockholm...
which was a very walkable city.
