We are mounting a new exhibition!
Preus Museum is closed for the installation of a new exhibition.
Welcome to the seminar and exhibition opening of NATURE on Thursday 16 February!
At the interdisciplinary opening seminar, you will hear biologists, philosophers, art historians and artists discuss art and culture in relation to nature and climate issues.
A free bus will be set up to/from Oslo. You sign up for the bus at the same time as the seminar. Read more here.
The exhibition AV NATURE looks at how our time's climate and nature crisis affects camera-based art's relationship to its subject. The exhibition alternately draws on the open quality of contemporary art, and the museum's potential as an actor and arena in democratic social development. In all the activities planned in connection with the exhibition, we want there to be room for a real community of disagreement. Read more here.
Karoline Hjort & Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates # Karin (Norway 2019). Preus Museum's Collection
Show extended captionEyes as Big as Plates is the ongoing collaborative project between the Finnish-Norwegian artist duo Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth. Starting out as a play on characters from Nordic folklore, Eyes as Big as Plates has evolved into a continual search for modern human’s belonging to nature.
The series is produced in collaboration with retired farmers, fishermen, zoologists, plumbers, opera singers, housewives, artists, academics and ninety year old parachutists. Since 2011 the artist duo has portrayed seniors in Norway, Finland, France, US, UK, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, South Korea, Czech Republic, Japan, Senegal, Outer Hebrides, Tasmania and Greenland.
Each image in the series presents a solitary figure in a landscape, dressed in elements from surroundings that indicate neither time nor place. Here nature acts as both content and context: characters literally inhabit the landscape wearing sculptures they create in collaboration with the artists.
As active participants in our contemporary society, these seniors encourage the rediscovery of a demographic group too often labelled as marginalized or even as a stereotypical cliché. It is in this light that the project aims to generate new perspectives on who we are and where we belong.