The death of Ola Pehrson 
Ola Pehrson, his wife Lena Gustavsson and two of their three children died in a tragic car crash Good Friday this year. Moderna Museet is inviting everyone to a memorial service on 7th of may - the last day - of the exhibition Moderna Exhibition 2006. Pehrson participated with his work "Hunt for the Una Bomber". This piece was also to be seen at the last Istanbul Biennial.

Pehrson was earlier selected to represent Sweden in the forthcoming Sao Paulo Biennial , and the participation will be followed out.

The tragic news has sent shock waves through the whole Scandinavian art community. I only hope that the memorial service in less than one week will be well attended (I am sure) and that his surviving child will get the support needed in the time to come.



[ 100 comments ] ( 4861 views )   |  [ 47 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1571 )
back again 
about a year after I started this blog, and after my second 4 months pause, What We Talk About When We Talk About Art - are back.
There have been no greater changes, but let me update you anyway:

I am working on a project for Manifesta. Me and artist Heman Chong are going to do a seminar where the students are going to write a science fiction novel. Looking forward to this. For that I we are doing a small READER called Untitled (Excerpts #01) - And we are looking for people with science fiction interest. If are interested, or know anyone that are, do not hesitate to contact me.

I will keep you updated on this.

Further, I have started a small non-for-profit kunstverein here in Leipzig called D21 (web page will be up and running in a few days). The first exhibition will be Obscure Yourself.

[ 619 comments ] ( 6931 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 2084 )
the turner prize 
The difference between Europe and America is rather large, I know that much, and that some artist that they "over there" find essential might in my view be provinsial or boring. But without being arrrogant, I thought that Simon Starling, the winne of this years Turner Prize, was at least a known name by art geeks in the States. After all, Daniel Birnbaum wrote a text on him in Artforum just one year ago (might need a )bugmenot to enter site). And after all, he was nominated for the last Hugo Boss Prize (won by Rirkrit Tirivanija, 2004).

I might be overreacting on a innocent "Simon Starling (who?)" "Simon Starling (who?)", but it did sound sort of strange that Starling in not known by Gibson. I might be mistaken.

---
read: Charlotte Higgins account on the winner in the Guradian.

links:
paperholic has a few other links, among them to a streaming interview with Starling

[ 1382 comments ] ( 55330 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1988 )
about subjectivity and google hitrate 
I guess I am not single-minded. I guess that is good. I guess that is less good for my google hit rate. Not that I care. This site is not meant to become a popular blog, or at least I am doing no effort to make it more attractive or easier to reach. I guess that means it is a non-commercial blog? I am however hoping that those (any) of you that reads it (un/frequently) have a certain interest in it. I am not Tyler Green, I am not a journalist and I am not doing much updating on the arts life in Leipzig -- altough I live here. I should tell more about Leipzig and it's art life. Starting on Wednesday. I promise.

My hit rate at google (is it at all possible to find this blog without knowing the link og going through )vitakuben ? I do not think so. thats good. The idea was to have a space online (means someone could read it) that would force me to write some lines now and then. The blog also fits into the concept of Vitakuben the way it is today: underdeveloped and strange. We have done no projects since the oVERstation project (see http://ah.vitakuben.org -- click on oVERstation), and the only one that is doing something with his pages is Aksel (AH). The others (kjersti Bergesen and Nicolai Høgenhaug) are doing next to nothing online (As it happens, Aksel is the onlyone that do now how to program...)

But back to my writing. I do not write that good, not good at all if you ask me. I think the only reason why I am wanted at all by Norwegian (and some foreign mags) is that I do know a few people and I always hear the news early on (when it comes to Norway that is, when it comes to international new within the art world I am probably one of the first Norwegians to read about it, either by friends and contacts or by reading magazines, newsletters and other related written material ). Blogs, I do read a great deal of blogs. not all of them listed in my blogsroll, by there are a few that I read.

But one thing is to want to do something, another thing is to be able to live from it. I cannot live from writing and I know very few people that is independent and being able to pay their bills from writing. I know they do excist, but the marked is just not large enough. That combined with the fact that magazines
a) want many independent writers and
b) do not want to pay that well -- or cannot pay very much -- makes it difficoult to live from writing about contemporary art in a non journalist fashion.


The last two weeks I have been selling advertisement for the online magazine
kunstkritikk, building up a network within Norway, doing some chance, spam-like mails to more international magazines and institutions landing a deal with a few institution and a few international (as in: not Norwegian). That was fun. Organizing was fun. much more fun than writing.

And I mean, I did apply for a job in northern Norway a wile back. The application deadline in on Monday (second round) and I am expecting to be called up, mailed or something like this asking me to come to a job interview -- again. So you see, I hope to be able to work on vermitlung and developing new concepts rather that writing.
-- or so I hope --

got to go, have to write that piece on that the Norwegian gallery wang will not be closed down, but they will probably step down their engagement considerably.



[ 493 comments ] ( 3647 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1757 )
how's this for a tabloid title: artists are a bit mad and has more sex  
The guardian reports that a new comparative survey shows that artist share some "unusual cognition". They are quite simply a bit mad. And they have twice as many partners as the rest of the population after the age of 18 (in England anyway -- I think up in northern norway where I come from most youth lead a very active sexual life from the age of 13-15 and get their first child at 18-20...) And there is not that many artist around up there (not many queer either although lesbians are socially accepted).

When are they going to do the same thing about art critics and curators?



[ 401 comments ] ( 29118 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1633 )

Back Next