Magne at Tommerup Ceramic Workshop, hammering letters into one of his massive jars
(Picture from Aftenposten.no)

Aftenposten’s weekend magazine A-magasinet has a 15-page article about Magne’s most ambitious art project to date; he is in the midst of creating the largest ceramic sculpture park in Scandinavia. A-magasinet has followed Magne’s process of making the sculptures, which is being done at Tommerup Ceramic Workshop in Denmark.

Magne has also made the magazine cover, out of clay. A video clip of him working on the cover can be seen here. Another video featuring Magne’s art has been posted here. And a full English translation of the article is available at Aftenposten.no.

The park is another commission by Kjell Inge Røkke’s company Aker, for which Magne has previously done a number of projects, including decorating the enormous sail of Røkke’s yacht Aglaia and a unique steel sculpture to be placed outside Røkke’s cabin.

The sculpture park will be situated outside the new Aker headquarters at Fornebu near Oslo and has been given the name Imprints. It will be comprised of 40 ceramic elements, including the two largest jars in the world (6 meters tall), nine columns (2 – 4 meters tall) and a 12 meter long ceramic relief.

“This is the single most comprehensive commission in my artistic career. That is why this new park is extremely important to me as a visual artist. I was never in doubt whether I should accept the challenge”, Magne says.

“The park will be marked by things I wrote through the years, texts with a lyrical element. Some of them come from songs I wrote, but most is free standing English poetry. I have something like 5000 – 6000 unpublished poems. They have been stowed away, awaiting some project.”

Many of the poems will eventually end up in a book in connection with the park, to be published later.

In addition to working on the sculpture park, Magne will hold a summer exhibition in Sandefjord from 28 June to 16 August. Sometime in the fall he’ll be exhibiting in Washington, and in December he’ll take part in a group exhibition in Rio.

“I know where I shall be every single day until June 2016, but I never get tired from working hard. What tires me, is the waste of time and people who get obsessed with details”, he says.

The first section of the Imprints park is set to open in August 2015, while the whole park won’t be completed until next summer.