Peel
Stian Ådlandsvik
27.01-12.02.23
Exhibition opening Friday 27 January, 19:00
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(...)You will not forgive me, if I do not say something of Hanover; I cannot tell you that the town is either large or magnificent. The opera house, which was built by the late elector, is much finer than that of Vienna. I was very sorry that the ill weather did not permit me to see Hernhausen in all its beauty; but in spite of the snow, I thought the gardens very fine. I was particularly surprised at the vast number of orange trees, much larger than any I have ever seen in England, though this climate is certainly colder. But I had more reason to wonder that night at the king's table, to see a present from a gentleman of this country, of two large baskets full of ripe oranges and lemons of different sorts, many of which were quite new to me; and what I thought worth all the rest, two ripe ananasses, which, to my taste, are a fruit perfectly delicious. You know they are naturally the growth of Brazil, and I could not imagine how they came here, but by enchantment.
By Mary Wortley Montagu, from a letter written to her sister Frances Pierrepont from Blankenburg, october 1716
What, I ask, more painfully embodies the illusory, unfulfillable promise of mobility than our titanic daily tussle with cables? The bloody things drive me absolutely bonkers: the cable on my TV, the cable to my smartphone, the cable to my laptop charger, always tangling up with the wires from which I hang my glasses, my headphones, my ever-changing collection of necklaces. No wonder the ancient sculpture of Laocoon and his writhing sons being attacked by a sea serpent remains so perennially topical, contemporary even: cables conjure the mirage of movement, yet forever keep us chained in place. We´re never going to get anywhere all tangled up in these so-called power cords.
By Goshka Macuga, from web-page of GONOGO, a proposal for Fourth Plinth, 2021
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Stian Ådlandsvik (1981) is a graduate of the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts (Oslo) and the Hochschule für bildende Künste (Hamburg). He works conceptually with sculpture that scrutinizes staples of European thinking and ideas, and how things and representations are connected to taste, value and profit. In recent years he has exhibited at Galleri K (Oslo), P////AKT (Amsterdam), Trondheim Art Museum (Trondheim), Season (Seattle, USA), Philipp von Rosen Galerie (Cologne, Germany) and Schunck (Heerlen, The Netherlands). Ådlandsvik has been acquired by, among others, the Astrup Fearnley Foundation (Oslo) and the Nomas Foundation (Rome).
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Supported by Norsk Kulturråd, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and Oslo Kommune