Posts Tagged ‘magne furuholmen’

Stolper + Friends launch “Shed 13” project

Magne in front of Shed 13, with Kate Smith (Daily Manager of Stolper + Friends) and Arnt Gøran Hartvig. (Picture from VG)

Stolper + Friends will unveil a new project in Oslo today. As an extension of the current “The Souls” exhibition, a large warehouse at Tjuvholmen called Shed 13 will be covered on two of its sides by six huge butterflies made by Damien Hirst.

“Everyone have been talking about Norway this summer, so this art project with the enormous butterflies can be seen as a nice gesture from Damien Hirst to Norway. (…) I think he felt that having his butterflies on display in super-format, out in the public for everyone to see, was an exciting and different project”, Magne tells VG.

The six butterflies, which measure a total of 1200 square meters, will stay on the walls for one month.

“Shed 13 is the perfect space to make temporary statements of different kinds on a grand scale. We hope this Hirst project is the first of many, from exciting artists from around the world and the other galleries in the area”, Magne said in a press release posted on Stolper + Friends’ Facebook page.

 

There is also a 2-page interview with Magne in the current issue of art magazine KUNST.

Asked if he now sees himself as a gallerist, he says:

“No. I’m involved as an owner, and I will of course make use of my network of contacts. But I’ll leave the daily operations to Hugo and the gallery workers. I’ll primarily focus on my own art projects, but I do live close by and will step in if there’s a need for it.”

Magne also says that he’s planning a new solo exhibition in December. But he’s not sure what the theme will be yet.

 

Update: After the lights had been switched on at Shed 13, Magne appeared on NRK’s evening news. The video clip can be seen here.

He was also interviewed by Dagbladet.

Apparatjik and a-ha comics in the making

A page from the Apparatjik comic book

Award-winning British comic book artist Mike Perkins has created a new comic about Apparatjik, which will be used in connection with upcoming Apparatjik concerts.

“It’s in black and white and fairly short, but I’ve shown it to Magne Furuholmen, who liked it. It will be published in concert folders in connection with upcoming Apparatjik concerts. Later on, it will be available in other media as well”, Perkins says.

Perkins, known for his work on Captain America and Stephen King’s The Stand, was in Bergen at the Raptus Comics Festival last weekend. In an interview with Aftenposten he says that he’s also planning a comic about a-ha’s Scoundrel Days album:

“For a long time I’ve wanted to turn Scoundrel Days into a comic book. It’s the darkest and most melancholic of a-ha’s albums, and I was a big fan of it when it was released in the fall of 1986.

The title track immediately caught my imagination, and gives me hints to manipulative politicians and things like that. There’s a certain film noir feeling to it, which can also be seen in the music videos, for example in “I’ve Been Losing You” which includes the line “The gun on the bedside table”.

I’m hoping to do Scoundrel Days in noir-style with limited use of colours. I would also want to use several of the music videos as inspiration, plus songs from other a-ha albums like Hunting High and Low and more recent songs like “Butterfly, Butterfly”. In the “Hunting High and Low” music video, Morten Harket transforms into a whale, a dolphin and finally a wolf [sic]. This is also something I’d want to incorporate into the comic book.

The main characters will be humans with the ability to transform into animals and jump to parallel worlds.”

Magne Furuholmen says that he’s all positive to a-ha songs being turned into a comic book:

“I think this is really exciting, and I can’t imagine the others in the band being negative to it. I have never been a comic book nerd myself, but I did read comics as a kid, like everyone else, and I have seen some of his previous work. He is very skilled and it will be interesting to see what he can come up with.”

– What do you think about an album living on in other art forms?

“This will be like a reinterpretation of something we’ve done. Having one expression living on in a different form is exciting. There’s something good about having created something that triggers someone else’s imagination in ways we couldn’t have originally envisioned”, Magne tells Aftenposten.

Magne visits Germany

Magne with fellow jury member Graham Hill
(Picture from smart-urban-stage.com)

Magne has been in Germany this week, to attend a few different events.

On Tuesday, September 13th, he was at the Smart Urban Stage exhibition in Frankfurt, the last in a series of twelve exhibitions held by car manufacturer Smart in various cities across Europe.

As part of a three-member jury with Lidewij Edelkoort and Graham Hill, Magne had the honour of announcing the winners of the Smart Future Minds Award – the most innovative of 110 projects based around the “future of the city”

The two winning projects were The People’s Supermarket (UK) and Calle de Diversion (Italy).

 

On Wednesday, September 14th, Magne was in Berlin at the release party of the third issue of SOME Magazine.

This issue of the art magazine documents the workshop held by Magne and fellow Apparatjik member Jonas Bjerre at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle earlier this year (see May 25th news update).

A video clip from the release party can be seen here.

Stolper + Friends opens in Oslo

Paul Stolper, Magne and Hugo Opdal in front of Damien Hirst's butterfly paintings 
(Picture from Dagsavisen)

The new gallery Stolper + Friends, which is owned by Paul Stolper, Magne Furuholmen and Hugo Opdal, opens at Tjuvholmen in Oslo tonight with the exhibition “The Souls” by Damien Hirst.

“The reason why I wanted to establish the gallery here, is that Tjuvholmen is a new district still in the making and in constant development. And with the Astrup Fearnley museum opening [next year] and the other galleries already here, I think we’ll get a nice dynamic which will attract many art fans to the area”, Magne told Aftenposten in an interview last week.

Magne’s own exhibition “Futura Plus”, which was supposed to open the gallery but was cancelled after the July 22nd tragedy, will instead be shown in Sweden sometime in November, he tells newspaper Dagsavisen today.

In an article at TheArtNewspaper.com yesterday, Magne said “Futura Plus” features “words including ‘death’ and ‘accident’, painted on blood-stained sheets collected from hospital autopsy-rooms and similar.”

At Stolper + Friends, “The Souls” is on display until October 2nd and will be followed by an exhibition of sculptures.

More pictures from inside the gallery can be seen here.

a-ha perform at National Memorial Ceremony

a-ha performed “Stay On These Roads” together with The Norwegian Radio Orchestra as part of the National Memorial Ceremony at Oslo Spektrum today, to remember the victims of the July 22nd attacks.

With them on stage they also had Karl Oluf Wennerberg on drums and Erik Ljunggren on keyboard. The song was arranged for orchestra by Kjetil Bjerkestrand.

If you missed the live broadcast, a-ha’s performance can be seen here. The whole 2-hour ceremony is available at nrk.no.

Magne explains cancellation

Picture from VG

Magne explains the cancellation of his “Futura Plus” exhibition in today’s VG.

Here are some quotes from the interview:

“I sat there completely numb and glued to the TV screen for a week, inhaling the news about the unbelieveable tragedy at Utøya island and the government quarter. As I gradually started to think ahead, it became clear that it wouldn’t be appropriate to hold my opening exhibition.”

“Drawing from experiences which include my own hospitalizations, I have during this last year been creating works for an exhibition thematically linked to human frailty in general, and hospital settings specifically, with everything that entails of drama, suffering and helplessness. I don’t want to make an exhibition which could be potentially upsetting in this situation.”

For “Futura Plus”, Magne had once again been collecting used bed sheets from various hospitals, to use as canvases.

“I’m not sure if this exhibition will ever be shown. We’ll see.”

“It is ironic that I’m opening my own gallery by cancelling my own exhibition. But that’s the right thing to do now. The paintings have been important for me to create, but it’s not important to show them now.”

Magne has created the new gallery Stolper + Friends together with his UK gallerist Paul Stolper and the Norwegian gallerist Hugo Opdal, who lives at Flø.

“I haven’t really harboured any ambitions to start my own gallery, but I have already been working with Stolper and Opdal for years, and when my previous gallery Trafo closed down last year the idea evolved naturally.”

The gallery’s opening exhibition will now be “The Souls” by Damien Hirst instead.

“The original plan was to show new works by Damien Hirst closer to Christmas, but now we had to do a quick turnaround, and it’s very fitting to show the beautiful butterfly-series “The Souls”, made in collaboration with Paul Stolper, where the butterfly symbolises, among other things, the journey and rebirth of the soul. It’s a much more appropriate association right now”, Magne says.

Exhibition cancelled

Magne has issued the following press release today:

“In light of the recent tragic events in Norway, Magne Furuholmen has decided to cancel his upcoming exhibition ‘Futura Plus’ due to the potentially upsetting nature of the works.

The new gallery ‘Stolper + friends’ will launch as planned on the 1st of September, but the first exhibition will be ‘The Souls’ by Damien Hirst.

More info to follow.”

The gallery’s new website states that Magne will be exhibiting later this year instead. Apparatjik are also planning something at Stolper + Friends later on.

Stolper + Friends is also on Twitter and Facebook.

Magne’s summer reading

Dagbladet has asked a few people about what they’re reading this summer, in today’s paper edition.

Here’s Magne’s answer:

“At the moment I’m reading a few different books. I just started on “Sabbath’s Theater” by Philip Roth. I’m also reading a collection of short stories by the Norwegian author Edy Poppy. I usually prefer to read books in English, so Poppy’s “Sammen.Brudd” is a rare exception.”

Magne presents “Futura Plus” at new gallery

Magne at Tjuvholmen in February 2009, working on "Confusion" for Bølgen & Moi.

Magne, Hugo Opdal and Paul Stolper have decided to open a new art gallery at Tjuvholmen in Oslo, Hugo Opdal announced in a press release today.

The gallery will be called “Stolper + Friends” and is set to open on September 1st with Magne’s new solo exhibition entitled “Futura Plus”.

“Stolper + Friends” will focus on artists from Norway and the UK, according to the press release.

Tjuvholmen is the same area where Magne decorated a new Bølgen & Moi Restaurant in early 2009.

Magne in Germany

Magne with students at the workshop in Halle, May 24th
(Picture from page-online.de)

Magne and fellow Apparatjik member Jonas Bjerre are in Germany this week, to hold a workshop for art students at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in the city of Halle.

The workshop started on Monday, May 23rd, and will continue throughout the rest of this week.

The idea is apparently to create new objects by using auto parts from a Smart car – continuing Apparatjik’s ongoing collaboration with the German car manufacturer.

Daily updates from the workshop project can be found here.

 
There was also recently an Apparatjik workshop in Moscow, following their concert there on May 13th. Here is some info from the Strelka Institute website:

After the performance at Strelka, Apparatjik will lead a closed workshop with Russian artists and musicians. Together they will work on a new interactive installation, which will connect Apparatjik’s creative work with local Russian context. The results of this collaboration will be shown at the Yota Space Festival in St. Petersburg this fall.

(Thanks to Carmen and Maria)

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