CURATORS
Erlend Hammer (NO) – Dare 2 Love Yourself
Power Ekroth (SE/NO) – Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
THE CURATORIAL CHOICE
The curators chose to curate two separate parts for Momentum 7, each with an own exhibition title and group of artists. The curator’s method of curatorial collaboration is a continuation of how Ekroth and Hammer previously worked with texts, often under the common name PowerHammer. The first of these texts addressed the issue of biennials and were published in B-Post Journal in 2008.
Both Ekroth and Hammer work primarily in a way that relies on close collaboration with the artists, and both have a passion for curating exhibitions based on the selected artists rather than to create definite constraints for the artists to adapt. The exhibitions emerge in dialogue between curators and their respective groups of artists.
Although both Ekroth and Hammer work with their artists in a similar, process-oriented way, there are also significant differences between the two curators. This is true both in terms of how they see their role as curators, as well as what might be called a generally different ideological approach to the arts.
Biography Power Ekroth
Biography & CV Erlend Hammer
ARTISTS
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Sergei Bugaev Afrika (RU), Loulou Cherinet (SE/ET), Jan Christensen (NO), Cevdet Erek (TR), Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen (NO), Goran Hassanpour (SE/Kurdistan), Laura Horelli (FI). Stine-Marie Jacobsen (DK), Hassan Khan (EG), Gabriel Lester (NL) Lisi Raskin (USA), Johan Zetterquist (Sverige), Clemens von Wedemeyer (Tyskland)
Dare 2 Love Yourself
Matthew Antezzo (USA), Per Christian Brown (NO), Paolo Chiasera (IT), Ane Graff (NO), Mai Hofstad Gunnes (NO), Knut Henrik Henriksen (NO), Ane Mette Hol (NO), Victor Lind (NO), Jared Madere (USA), Bjarne Melgaard (NO), Sex Tags (NO), Eve K. Tremblay (CA) Lars Monrad Vaage (NO), Charlotte Wankel (NO), Sverre Wyller (NO)
SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST
Advocating a romantic thought about contemporary art being worth something beyond an economical value, or a simple marker of social stand, the exhibition Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast challenge the visitors stop for a second and think about what art may be and mean to a society. The works in the exhibition are thus not to be considered as bricks that fit into a tight conceptual wall. Most of the works are produced for Momentum by artists that were invited because of an ability to embrace serious issues with a playful mind and a dash of humor. Some ideas and works proposed in the exhibition might indeed be impossible, others problematic, others obscure or perhaps even idiotic. An exhibition or an art work may represent a looking-glass into another world; deformed or deranged, a place where mystery and allure can be found, where one can lose oneself for a moment and exit with some new food for thought. The call to try to think of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast every day is most likely one of the most important activities one can engage in, something that may fuse resistance, innovation and perhaps even: change.
Power Ekroth
Curator
DARE 2 LOVE YOURSELF
Dare 2 Love Yourself is a group exhibition for which the artists were invited on the basis that their work should function well together. Some works are now presented in Norway for the first time, or in a new context where they get to play against other works. Other works were produced especially for this exhibition. Common to all of them is that the focus along the way has been based on the dialogue between the artists and the curator. The goal has been to create an exhibition that is experienced as coherent even if there is no common thread.
Erlend Hammer
Curator
