"I get restless and disillusioned when I feel I'm repeating myself in my art", Magne tells Budstikka

Budstikka has an interview with Magne today, in connection with his anniversary exhibition Bouquet which opens at Galleri Trafo in Asker tomorrow.

“I hope this exhibition will challenge me to leave everything behind and start on something different. It may even be something other than art. I like to challenge myself and step out of situations that are starting to become successfull”, Magne tells the newspaper.

“I have a basic scepticism to being seduced by success. That’s probably a pop-injury. Ask people what they connect with a-ha, and 90 percent will answer “Take On Me”, which I wrote as a 15-year-old. That song has become so defining, and I don’t like to be defined”.

“I’m bored silly by artists who end up being slaves of their own success, and who don’t want to visit their darker sides, where everything is chaos”, he says.

The Bouquet exhibition, which has the same title as Magne’s outdoor installation nearby, will be open from October 25th to November 25th at Galleri Trafo (slightly different dates than what was first announced).

Magne doing tests in connection with his outdoor installation 
(Picture from LiveIn Asker)

Magne is currently preparing a new solo exhibition, to be held at Galleri Trafo in Asker from 27. October – 18. November.

Local magazine LiveIn Asker has an interview with him in its fall 2012 edition, where he talks about the plans:

“- This will be a kind of anniversary exhibition. In connection with my 50th birthday in November, Galleri Trafo and the house owner asked me if I would be interested in doing something to mark the occasion. I said I would. I have kept artworks from many different periods of my career as a visual artist, and I want to show a mix of old and new. These works haven’t been exhibited together before, so it will also give me a chance to see the works side by side for the first time and thereby get a look at any artistic development. Retrospectiveness is not something I have done too often.”

In addition to the exhibition, Magne is also planning an outdoor installation called Bouquet, the magazine can reveal:

“During the opening of [art festival] Kunst Rett Vest [on October 9th], Magne Furuholmen will do something no one else has done before. By using a gigantic nylon sheet, he is going to create an artwork on one of Asker’s most spectacular buildings. Torvgården will light up in artistic letters. The building will literally be wrapped up in Magne’s art. He’s not yet sure how it will look, but the renowned artist can promise a sight that people will remember.”

“- This is a temporary artwork that will put its mark on the whole area during a limited period of time – in the way graffiti and street art can do, albeit in a more legal and controlled form”, Magne says.

The whole interview is available as a PDF file at livein.no.