Unge Kunstneres Samfund

CLOSE READINGS

Welcome to our first reading session today from 3:30pm. Today’s session will be dedicated to the memory of American writer, editor, critic and comrade Marina Vishmidt (1976–2024) through the reading of her text ‘Between Not Everything and Not Nothing: Cuts Toward Infrastructural Critique’.

You can read the article in advance or do feel very welcome to come unprepared. This is a short but difficult text that we will read together in person and try our best to understand.

All levels of engagement and questions are welcome. We want to create a safe and open environment for reflection and learning, even when the reading material is challenging.

The text can be found on our website.
Everyone is welcome to join!

UKS is pleased to introduce Close Readings, our new no-preparation-needed monthly reading group.

This summer and autumn, Close Readings will be developing a vocabulary of infrastructural critique. Together we will work to understand a theoretical framework for the multiple processes, institutions, technologies and networks that form the arena in which we live.

You can read the article in advance or do feel very welcome to come unprepared. This is a short but difficult text that we will read together in person and try our best to understand. All levels of engagement and questions are welcome.

More information and link to pdf of text is available on our website: https://www.uks.no/program/reading-group/

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CLOSE READINGS
MARINA VISHMIDT: BETWEEN NOT EVERYTHING AND NOT NOTHING: CUTS TOWARDS INFRASTRUCTURAL CRITIQUE
26 June 2024, 3:30-5 PM
UKS, Keysers gate 1

Er hele sponsoravtalen en utholdenhetsperformance?
UKS og BO - Billedkunstnerne i Oslo skriver i dag om Nasjonalrederiet, nei, nasjonalmuseet og deres nye sponsoravtale for performanceprogram i Klassekampen. Kan det å stadig velge de vondeste støttespillerne, vere en kritikk av påbudet om å skaffe seg privat støtte?

Nasjonalrederiet Nasjonalmuseet er stolte av å ha funnet nok en rederfamilie til å sponse museet, Lise M. Stolt-Nielsen og hennes barn, andre og tredje generasjon ette...

On view in UKS’ library until 16 june: YOUNG DUMB & BROKE featuring Andreas Eriksson 🌊

Running in parallel with UKS’ revolving solo exhibitions, YOUNG DUMB & BROKE is a series of displays, each mounting a single early work by an artist once young and unknown, who is today older and esteemed. This fifth edition presents an early painting by Eriksson inspired by a painting he had seen in New York the previous year: Willem de Kooning’s …Whose Name Was Writ in Water (1975).

The lyrical title of the painting is a reference to the epigraph on the tombstone of the poet John Keats (1795 – 1821) – ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water’ – where the motif conveys the flowing movements of water. Eriksson thought he glimpsed the name ‘Bill’, short for Willem, in skewed and warped letters in de Kooning’s abstract painting.

UKS is open Wed–Fri, 12–5pm and Sat–Sun, 1-3PM! Come by to see both Andreas Eriksson’s work and Lisa Storseth Pettersens’s solo exhibition: «Everyone Leans Towards Something» ☀️🌙🚗🎼🪨🍞🟦

⚡️Final days!⚡️

We are entering the final weekend of Lisa Størseth Pettersen’s solo exhibition ‘Everyone Leans Towards Something’ at UKS. The exhibition will be in active mode today 5–7pm and on Saturday and Sunday from 1–3pm. Don’t miss it!

Størseth Pettersen creates site-specific, performative happenings with a basis in rehearsal and repetition. Together with a variety of collaborators, she has staged an experience that moves between fiction and reality.Størseth Pettersen and UKS have worked with a large team for the realization of this project, and we would like to warmly thank them all:

CHOIRS
Trill Vokal
Oslo Veterankor
Koret Diandre
I kveld er det lov å være koret

SOLOIST
Solveig Sørbø

STONEMASON
Chris Fleurie/Steinhuggerfestivalen i Grorud

LIGHT DESIGN
Gard Gitlestad

TEXT
Annett Busch

NEIGHBOURS
April Alexandersdatter, Erle Berg Eeg, Louise Evensen, Lea Fosse, Ingrid Hesledalen, Helena Søgaard

DRIVERS
Erlend Bløndal, Simon Tekeste

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All images by Jan Khür / .abrakadabra

✨ Thank you to everyone who came out for UKS´ seventh iteration of the event series COMMUNE – featuring Elise By Olsen and Geir Haraldseth for a conversation on archives.

UKS had invited Oslo’s International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR) to present a one-night-only display of a selection of material from their collection, alongside a selection from Geir Haraldseth’s own library and archive, and UKS’ vast institutional archive.

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COMMUNE: Archive Conversation and Display at UKS on 29 May 2024. If you missed the event, you can watch the recording at https://youtu.be/eLaMHuw_VIY

Images are now up on our website. All photos by Julie Hrnčířová / Studio Abrakadabra

«Everyone Leans Towards Something» is Lisa Størseth Pettersen’s first project stretching over the length of a six-week exhibition period. It takes its cue from a piece staged in UKS’ building in 1939, when Keysers gate 1 was home to Søilen Teater. Written two years prior, J.B. Priestley’s «I Have Been Here Before» (1937) is a quaint and puzzling account of a chance meeting of characters at a North York Moors inn. As some get the feeling that they have, in fact, been here before, the psychological phenomenon of déjà vu is contemplated, while metaphysics is challenged as the consequences of foretelling the future play out over the course of a few days.

In the exhibition space at UKS, this narrative is present through stage lighting that follows the manuscript’s instructions: fading blue afternoon glimmers and a strong sun rising. The artist herself interferes in the story by covering one of the room’s columns with slices of bread; a caring gesture towards the protagonist Mr Ormund’s heavy drinking and unhealthy working habits – she wants to give him something to eat.

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Lisa Størseth Pettersen:
Everyone Leans Towards Something
May 4 - June 16
UKS

Resting mode:
Wednesday – Friday, 12–5pm

Active mode:
Thursday, 5–7pm
Saturday, 1–3pm
Sunday, 1–3pm

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Images: Jan Khür / Studio Abrakadabra

Through the inclusion of actions and representatives that relate to forms of caring, she touches on what lies around art-making: positions on the periphery but always impacting labour of any status, and also art. Danish author and researcher Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt defines this as ‘production aesthetics’, of which she writes that, in its feminist form, it ‘practices and articulates relations in the present – be it relations to people, care, money, time, materials, space, landscape.

In Lisa Størseth Pettersen’s exhibition, this aesthetic is used as a means to highlight the ambivalence in such relations: how they are always on the move to becoming something else. The artist seems to play with what can come out of the strangeness of the clashes. She constructs with both earnestness and humour. What is on offer is the summoning of a particular moment in time as a generous proposition to us, as audience members, to her collaborators and to the institution. As this occurs, moment after moment, day after day, its content empties itself in order to reoccur, differently with each attempt.

Within this, there is also a repetition of breaks, between the acts and between the exhibition’s active mode. As “Everyone Leans Against Something” forms resting time – an activity seen as highly unproductive in our neoliberal economies – a political potential arises to counteract contemporary life’s hijacking of time.

Lisa Størseth Pettersen:
Everyone Leans Towards Something
May 4 - June 16
UKS

Resting mode:
Wednesday – Friday, 12–5pm

Active mode:
Thursday, 5–7pm
Saturday, 1–3pm
Sunday, 1–3pm

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Text by Live Drønen. Image text) A small excerpt from 1 of 2 texts from the exhibition by Annett Busch. Image 2 and 3) Øystein Thorvaldsen

COMMUNE: Archive Conversation and Display
29 May, 6-9 PM

UKS has invited Oslo’s International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR) to present a one-night-only display of a selection of material from their collection, alongside a selection from “From the collection of”, and UKS’ vast institutional archive. At 7 pm there will be a conversation about archives with Elise By Olsen, founder of ILFR, Geir Haraldseth, curator and self-proclaimed hoarder.

International Library of Fashion Research archives, preserves and mediates fashion’s printed matter. The library’s holdings consists of more than 15,000 objects including books, magazines and other kinds of ephemera dating from 1975 until the present. From the collection of is curator Geir Haraldseth’s library and archive. The collection is currently deposited at Rogaland Art Centre in Stavanger, and consists of housands of books and magazines covering contemporary art, lifestyle and fashion from the 1960s until today.

UKS’ Minibar will serve refreshments from 6 to 9pm. Feel free to also visit our fifth edition of YOUNG DUMB AND BROKE-series and our current exhibition which can be observed in its resting mode. All are warmly welcome.

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Images: 1) Wenche Foss sits for portraits by Gunnar S. Gundersen and other UKS members in 1966. Photo: Ivar Aaserud, Aktuell magazine, 1966. 2) Foto Einar Fuglem 3) Ina Wesenberg/ The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design

YOUNG DUMB & BROKE
#5 ANDREAS ERIKSSON
5. april – 16. juni 2024

For the fifth edition of this exhibition series, UKS presents ANDREAS ERIKSSON (b. 1975), a Swedish artist who has achieved wide international recognition with institutional exhibitions and biennials. Using various media, ranging from painting and textile work to sculpture and installation, Eriksson explores his immediate surroundings in Lidköping, at the southern end of Lake Vänern. Eriksson is known for his delicate paintings that abstract motifs from forest floor, bog and soil through formal and conceptual processes.

Facing his own failed painting in Stockholm, Eriksson added his first name using bold brushstrokes in the wet, pasty paint. ‘An-dre-as’ is imprinted into the cloudy blue-green surface, like the shades of an algae-infested lake. In this way, Vars namn är skrivet i färg captures historical references and whimsical tributes between artists, across disciplines, centuries and stages of their careers.

Text by Ida Møller Engebretsen, who has curated Young Dumb & Broke #5 Andreas Eriksson. .eriksson.medelplana

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YOUNG DUMB & BROKE is a series of mini exhibitions at UKS each displaying a single, early work by a previously unknown, but now older and esteemed artist. The series explores the quest between young artists’ experiments and the hindsight of recognition and leveraging of experience, borrowing its title from a billboard hit from the 2017 American Teen album by singer-songwriter Khalid.

Images: Øystein Thorvaldsen

COMMUNE: Archive Conversation
/ UKS’ archive meets International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR) and “From the collection of”

Welcome to an Archive Conversation with Elise By Olsen, founder of ILFR and Geir Haraldseth, curator and self-proclaimed hoarder, touching on aspects of the respective archives; how an archive starts – and, eventually, ends – how its value shifts, its objects deteriorate, and the importance of keeping it alive.

Please join us on Wednesday 29 May from 6 pm for the seventh iteration of UKS’ event series COMMUNE – moulding the new UKS spaces in Keysers gate 1 into an artistic, theoretical and social meeting place with the help of a variety of local and international agents from the arts and cultural spheres. For more information, please check our website https://www.uks.no/archive/commune-elise-by-olsen-geir-haraldseth/

Conversation starts at 7 pm. UKS’ Minibar will serve refreshments from 6 to 9 pm, and our current exhibition can be observed in its resting mode. All are warmly welcome!

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Images: 1) Wenche Foss sits for portraits by Gunnar S. Gundersen and other UKS members in 1966. Photo: Ivar Aaserud, Aktuell magazine, 1966. 2) ILFR. Photo: W***y Busfield.

🚘 Take a Ride
Expanding beyond the institutional walls, the exhibition offers visitors the chance to take a ride around part of Oslo’s city centre. The cars are conducted by kindergarten teachers, including a playlist of music gathered by themselves and others connected to their profession.

Visitors are picked up and dropped off at UKS. Seats for rides on Thursdays at 6 pm or 6:30pm and on Saturdays at 1pm or 1:30pm can be reserved by emailing [email protected] The ride is approximately 15 minutes long.

Welcome to Lisa Størseth Pettersens solo show: Everyone Leans Toward Something till 16th of June with the following opening hours:

Resting mode:
Wednesday – Friday,
12–5pm

Active mode:
Thursday, 5–7pm
Saturday, 1–3pm
Sunday, 1–3pm

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🚘 Bli med på kjøretur
Utstillingen strekker seg ut av institusjonens fysiske rom, og som en del av dette inviteres publikum med på en kjøretur i Oslo sentrum. Bilene kjøres av barnehageansatte, og turen akkompagneres av en spilleliste med musikk valgt av sjåføren og andre barnehageansatte i Oslo.

Publikum vil hentes og slippes av på UKS. Alle kan forhåndsbooke plass i bilen for turene på torsdager kl 18 eller 18:30 og på lørdager kl 13 eller 13:30 ved å sende en mail til [email protected] Kjøreturen varer i ca. 15 minutter.

Velkommen til Lisa Størseth Pettersens soloutstilling: Alle lener seg mot noe, som står helt frem til 16. juni med følgende åpningstider:

Hvilende modus:
Onsdag – fredag, kl. 12.00 – 15.00

Aktiv modus:
Torsdag, kl. 17.00 – 19.00
Lørdag, kl. 13.00 – 15.00
Søndag, kl. 13.00 – 15.00

Images: Jan Khür / Studio Abrakadabra

Welcome to an exhibition where a stonemason documents the exhibition in soapstone transported from the workshop of the 1300s Nidaros Cathedral in the artist’s hometown of Trondheim; kindergarten teachers play their own and their colleagues’ favourite music on the stereo while driving visitors around central Oslo; a choir regularly sings those same pop songs, while wandering around UKS’ building; and neighbours of the art institution share instructions in whispers and written notes.

What happens between the participants, audiences, the building’s architecture and – expanding beyond the institutional walls – the city’s roads? Movement is emphasised over monumentalism, and as detached elements are knotted together, meaning might be formed.

Lisa Størseth Pettersen:
Everyone Leans Towards Something
4 May - 16 June
Young Artists´ Society

Resting mode:
Wednesday – Friday, 12–5pm

Active mode:
Thursday, 5–7pm
Saturday, 1–3pm
Sunday, 1–3pm

Please join us today – Thursday 16 May at 7pm – for the sixth iteration of UKS’ event series COMMUNE – moulding the new UKS spaces in Keysers gate 1 into an artistic, theoretical and social meeting place with the help of a variety of local and international agents from the arts and cultural spheres.

On this evening, Dora García, visual artist and professor of Contemporary Art at KHiO – Oslo National Academy of the Arts, will present the result of an exercise of political imagination, titled ‘art/commons’, which took place at KHiO and UKS earlier this year together with students from KHiO. Two of the students, Terne Kirkegaard Ebdrup and Jesper Julius Severin Thonke, will take part in the public presentation.

All are warmly welcome. The event will start straight after the active mode of our current exhibition by Lisa Størseth Pettersen closes, at 7pm – we encourage everyone to come earlier to catch this as well. The Minibar will be open!