Objektiv Conversations: Recent Episodes
Objektiv Press
Since our first edition, published in the spring of 2010, conversations on camera-based art has been the core of Objektiv. Throughout our issues we have always had one or more conversations between artists and others on the scene, conversations that aim to highlight current tendencies in this art practice. This fall we are testing the podcast format.
OBJEKTIV EDITIONS: BOOKS, PRINTS AND VIDEOTAPE POP UP PARIS 23-27 MAY
How We Work
For our latest issue, A Criticism Review, we invited a group of writers and critics to reflect on current trends and desired changes in the writing community, considering new ideas about how to work. More and more journals have closed or moved online in the past years and are commissioning fewer texts. In spite of the fact that the international art scene is flourishing, many exhibitions go by almost unnoticed in the press because of a lack of resources. However, the involuntary pause experienced by the art scene over the past two years, and its gradual reopening, have presented an opportunity to redefine and refocus the way we work.
On Tuesday the 24th of May, Objektiv presented the conversation How We Work at our temporary pop up space in the Marais, an opportunity to look closer at writers, publishers and the artists they're devoting their work to. The idea is to valorize the artist's voice, as well as the writer's. We will discuss new ideas for scholarship in contemporary art as well as the creative production of print media. A presentation from Nina Strand, followed by a discussion with contributing writer, Lillian Davies.
On Wednesday 25th of May, we invited to an apéro with artist, Ola Rindal, and a presentation of his work shown in the space. Some photographers seem to invent their very own quality of light in their imagery. Norwegian Rindal is no exception, both in his commercial work and in his own projects.
A conversation with Eline Mugaas on her current exhibition In Adjoining Rooms at Galleri Riis. Images: link.
These objects are a distillation of light from photographs. They articulate a room when the light changes and I experience how space and color evolves. The objects are not houses, they are not comments on architecture, models of homes, or dollhouses. They are not paintings, they are painted objects. They contain the memory of a room, a room within the room, and together they may constitute a building. Unlike a detached house, whose shape I can imagine and simplify into a sign, I would know a large building through the rooms I have slept in, while the shape of building itself is obscure. The functionality of a building is all its rooms linked together. Like organs in a body. Like a cell in a monastery. The cell has an outline, a boundary of walls, it is defined from within, not from its exterior.
- Eline Mugaas, March 2022
A conversation on Balke’s show Rough Seas and her upcoming photobook. The term Rough Seas evokes a sense of instability. It is used to describe a difficult situation or time, conjuring unrest, agitation or excitement. Despite the magnitude of its symbolism, it is also used to describe an intimate reality, as is often the case in the artist’s work.
Dolven Balke depicts familiar situations in seemingly ordinary places, grown out of her own experiences. In her images there are figures relaxing by water, bones of aquatic animals, a grieving man lying on a picnic table, a woman pumping milk from her breasts or an MRI scanner with signs of recent use. Mundane scenes become condensed monuments to everyday life. Her photographs are often shown side by side with sculptures using tactile materials and recognizable objects.
The ongoing series FLOW shows original polaroids cut out from cast silicone objects. The material is skin-like, typically used in prosthetic limbs or special effects. These rectangular sliced bodies in different tones replicate water-resistant patterns such as anti-slip pads, dish drying mats, wetroom appliances and suction pumps. Listen to the conversation here.
Join us for a conversation between Nina Strand and Ashik Zaman whom together with Koshik Zaman and Azmi Kashem has founded and run the Swedish online magazine C-print.
During the pandemic, Objektiv initiated a series for its online journal called Visual Wanderings. Photographers from all over the world were invited to create art that responded to our new situation: what did the lock-down mean for their work? Now, we want to hear from the writers and the critics.
**On Friday the 29th of October, Objektiv Editions hosted this conversation between Ayo Akinsete and Lisa Bernhoft-Sjødin.
Ayo Akinsete’s ongoing series You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2016–) is a visual meditation on Black life America; on being born and raised in something continuously brutal in its hypocrisy; on having a privileged relationship to Blackness, but not owning it. Born in Nigeria and raised in Ohio, Akinsete never truly aspired to be American. He began making the work in 2016, months before the election of Donald Trump, when living in an itinerant state between Norway and the US. The contemplations continue; the work is ongoing. The riso print shown in the Objektiv space is from the series.**
Since our first edition, published in the spring of 2010, conversations on camera-based art has been the core of Objektiv. Throughout our issues we have always had one or more conversations between artists and others on the scene, conversations that aim to highlight current tendencies in this art practice. This fall we are testing the podcast format, this conversation is with Dev Dhunsi. Currently taking his bachelor of Fine art at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, he just had a solo show at Fotografiens Hus in Oslo.
This fall we are testing the podcast format. This is our first attempt: Nina Strand in conversation with Morten Andenæs. Twice a year, Objektiv Press publis an essay-publication on a tendency within photography, giving one person – an artist, curator, or critic – the time and space to present longer, meaningful essays on photography. Making Worldsby Morten Andenæs looks at the works of Lucas Blalock, Else Marie Hagen, Torbjørn Rødland and Tom Sandberg. Not content simply to describe the world, these artists see the photographic medium as instrumental in making sense of the world. Starting from the Icelandic notion of home as our initial world, Andenæs explores the acts of looking and representing as integral components of human development that determine what can and cannot be seen, thus defining our horizons.