CLOSE ENCOUNT WITH ERNESTO NETO

 

I really love Ernesto Neto and what he does, and has done it for a few years now. But I've never gotten the chance to experience his art in real life before now. Because he is working with the interactions between human and object and playing with all our senses I really think you have to experience it on a physical level. That it why I was so excited when I heard he was coming here to Oslo. The landscapes that he makes in his installations is always really playful, a little repulsive with it's organic and inside body-like shapes, but very delicate. The materials is really beautiful and nice to watch at a distance, as well as close up; they are often a littlebit transparent and stretchy, and everything is so soft. It's often with nice structures, and he also uses food and spices in his installations.

The Astrup Faernley is known for their competence and will to show Oslo what's really going on in the art world; their exhibitions is alwais large headers. Both very contemporary and big names from the latest art history. Now it's suddenly not free anymore, so I paid 30 kroner (student price) to get in, but that's not too bad, with high expectations. But I was a little bit disappointed; I don't think they had gotten the really interesting pieces and great landscapes. It was very simple done and did not challenge the space in the museum in a very interesting way. Or maybe the spaces is not that good in the first place.

So in the end I am satisfied; the initiative is really good, and it is nice to see something like this in Norway, something that shortens the distance between the art space and the participant, and invites to discussions on many intellectual levels. And very inspiring for me as a designer, since I find what I do really close to this. And I bought a book there; "I'll Be Your Mirror - The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews", which I am dying to read!