Online Presentation, September 9 - 12
Solo Presentation, Ane Graff, The Goblets (Soil Edition)
For the 2021 edition of The Armory Show, OSL contemporary is proud to present an online presentation by Ane Graff. Coinciding with her participation in the exhibition Liquid Life, curated by Martha Kirszenbaum at The Kistefos Museum, and upcoming, 7x7, Rhizome at Kunsthall Stavanger, Graff will present a sculptural work and her ongoing series, The Goblets.
The Goblets (Soil Edition) contain ingredients that refer to the interlaced narrative of materials. The individual drinking glasses (goblets) contain a mix of medications, consumer goods, foodstuffs, cosmetics, historical pigments, soil, fertiliser, salts, metals, seashells, and minerals (etc.) in a range of blends. Through collaborating with synthetic biologist Tal Danino, Graff has been able to add bacterial cultures to some of the individual works. The dried agar sheets are made from soil bacteria.
The hanging sculptural structure plays on scientific displays and the early history of scientific collections. Collectors arranged and organized objects in a range of ways - using the display as a tool of understanding, not only the chosen objects, but the physical world surrounding them. The floating glass and steel structure makes both soil and goblets examinable from all angles, as matter is literally lifted above our heads. Graff is interested in the human body as a meeting place, a place where different materials and histories-of-becoming meet, and how such encounters both create and change us. Her sculptures are such meeting places and can be seen as bodies themselves. They are created to show entangled narratives and material meetings, both conceptually and materially.
Link available from September 9: OSL contemporary, Online Presentation
* 3D sketch of sculpture and booth by RH
Artist Talk: Ane Graff in conversation with Tal Danino
Moderated by curator Martha Kirszenbaum. Introduction by Executive Director Rhizome, Zachary Kaplan.
The Armory Show VIP program
10 September at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET
Please click on this link to sign up for the zoom- talk
The talk is co-hosted by OSL contemporary, Rhizome and Kistefos, and is supported by the Royal Norwegian Consulate General and Office for Contemporary Art Norway, OCA
Ane Graff is informed by feminist new materialisms’ ongoing re-thinking of our material reality, in which a relational and process-oriented approach to matter—including the matter of living bodies—plays an integral part. Within this framework, Graff focuses on human and non-human relationships, viewing human beings as part of an expansive, material network, stretching inside and outside of our bodies. Her work trace lines of Western intellectual history and ask ideas of human exceptionalism, Cartesian dualism and representational thinking all relate to the ecological disasters we face today, and furthermore, what seem to be their current and future implications for material bodies. Graff sees all material bodies as part of an ongoing material experiment, where new substances are being added to the mix (through industrial production and pollution), causing an entangled web of changes and promoting new bodily states. Collaborating with scientists, Graff’s sculptural works often incorporate experimental materials such as bacterial pigments, hair dye, meat glue, phytoestrogens and SSRI antidepressant medications.
Ane Graff (b. 1974, Bodø) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. She graduated from Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 2004 and currently holds a position of PhD Research Fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, with her doctoral dissertation scheduled spring 2022. Current and upcoming exhibitions include Liquid Life at the Kistefos Museum (curated by Martha Kirszenbaum), the Rhizome/ New Museum/ Stavanger Kunsthall collaboration 7x7 as well as a solo exhibition at Kunstinstituut Melly (previously known as Witte de With), spring 2022. Previous exhibitions include the 2021 Liverpool Biennale (curated by Manuela Moscoso); Weather Report –Forecasting Future, Nordic Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, (curated by Piia Oksanen and Leevi Haapala, KIASMA) 2019; Art Encounters Biennial, (curated by Maria Lind & Anca Rujoiu) 2019; Soon Enough: Art in Action, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, 2018; Myths of the Marble, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 2017; the 11th Gwangju Biennale The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju, 2016; and Surround Audience, The New Museum Triennial, 2015, NY.
For more information on the artist, please visit our website
For all other inquiries, please contact info@oslcontemporary.com.
