Ole Jørgen Ness. Flat Acrylic
Experience a site-specific work by the artist Ole Jørgen Ness in the Tower Room.
Ole Jørgen Ness (b. 1961) is one of Norway’s foremost artists. This winter he is coming to KODE, where he will create a site-specific work on the floor of the Tower Room.
The public will be able to follow the process from beginning to end. In the first phase, Ness will be present and working in the Tower Room until 6 December. The exhibition continues until 22 February. Come and join us for the finissage on 22 February at the end of the period – a closing party – when the work will be destroyed! Ultimately all that remains is the history of the work, as it lives on through photos and in the memories of those who saw it.
Follow the process
"The most common antidote to the fear of death is the reduction of consciousness, especially through self-distraction in the form of stress, hassle, hedonistic consumption, and social media. Submission to irrational religious or political dogmas or hormone-fuelled group frenzies are also popular. Such activities keep us fixed in the realm of short-term memory. Our ability to retain information is weakened and with it our longterm memory, which in turn leads to a decline in our ability to eflect."
Flat Acrylic offers an alternative to this: pure experience in the individual’s consciousness. The work in the Tower Room will develop according to a simple algorithm that describes organic growth, which is involved in, for example, the development of teeth and bone structures. Small fields of paint are applied in an improvised arrangement. The fields are expanded, giving rise to new shapes along the way.
Special ticket
At your first visit, you will recieve a ticket, which gives access to the Tower Room for the duration of the whole process.
About the artist
Ole Jørgen Ness was born in Bergen in 1961 and grew up in Fredrikstad. He trained at the National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo, and has presented his work in numerous exhibitions both in Norway and internationally. Ness was the official festival artist at the Bergen International Festival in 2006 and represented Norway at the Art Biennale in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2002.
Ness attracted attention in the 1990s, when he began to operate with nine different artist personas, each with a different nationality and biography, and distinct views on art. Through characters such as Urban Ghadtspa, Norvald Braaten and Ambrosia Uhrman, each of whom cultivated a different genre – from abstract painting to sculpture and minimalism – he challenged the myth that every artist has to find his own style and identity.
Later he formed Nesstudio, which fused the various positions and identities Ness had explored over the preceding decade. Rather than exclude his earlier artistic personas, he allowed them to merge, giving rise to new and unforeseeable idioms, usually in the form of complex, chaotic installations or Gesamtkunstwerk.
- 3 Nov 2018 to 22 Feb 2019
- 130,- / 60,- / 0,- *
* Adults: NOK 130, Students: NOK 60, Bergen Card: NOK 90, Free admission for children and KODE members. The ticket gives admission to all exhibitions at KODE for two days
