Kristin Sæterdal
Remembrance Of The Sun
4. oktober - 11. november 2012
Kristin Sæterdal’s monumental work Remembrance of the Sun is a manifesto on display in a dark exhibition space at RAM Gallery. This two-sided piece invites the observer into two equally important spaces, one in front and one behind, creating a room within a room.
Sæterdal is inspired by archetypes from pop culture. The tapestries welcome us into environments, scenographies and architectural spaces that have been harvested from the worlds of science fiction, comics and computer gaming aesthetics. Subjects are always missing from Sæterdal’s work. The format is often so large (in this case 420 x 160 cm) that we as observers are absorbed into some kind of logical operative position when standing in front of a work, and in this way the observer becomes an active participant in interaction with the art.
Remembrance of the Sun presents us with a grotto landscape with traces of a lost narrative hinting at an approaching event; something is about to happen. But above all we sense the mystery of the gloom – a dramaturgic gest. Obscure blue colours dominate the tapestry that slowly reveal the theme of the work, little by little. References to Plato’s allegory of the cave point us toward the history of philosophy which is replicated in future visual art such as Salomon Gessner’s "Die Doppelte Grotte" from 1771. *The lines in the work seem to arise from the Stone Age, traditional handcrafted and time-consuming art and cyber space or digital art are insinuated by the tapestry’s own light source like small diodes blinking across the individual elements of the work.
Kristin Sæterdal also has another work of similar size on exhibition at the Annual Exhibition for the Norwegian Artistic Handicrafts Association at the Norwegian National Museum until 9 December; that piece is called “The Blue Control Room".
Kristin Sæterdal was educated as an architect at the Oslo School of Architecture in Oslo and also spent time at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design and at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. She has had a number of individual and group exhibitions in the past. She lives and works in Oslo.
This project received economic support from the Arts Council of Norway. A catalogue has been printed for the exhibition. Welcome to the opening on Thursday 4 October at 19:00.
An introduction will be held by Elisabeth Sørheim, Director of programmes at the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts.
Welcome to the press preview on Tuesday 2 October at 14:00.
