The exhibition «To encounter» lets you experience Siri Aurdal’s monumental work, «Interview» (1968/2018). This hovering installation, made from transparent plexiglass, forms an architecture that influences how the audience moves through colourful and labyrinthian shapes.
Siri Aurdal’s experimental use of pre-fabricated industrial materials to create large and structurally complex art installations was a ground-breaking innovation in Norwegian art in the 1960s and 70s.
In the 70s she was part of the GRAS political and radical art collective, and the currents of ideas she encountered in Europe in the early 1960s strengthened her belief in the political and social role of art. Artistically, she placed great emphasis on human experience, creating works that engaged the audience and invited them to actively participate.
Aurdal wanted to erode traditional conventions, moving away from the idea of the artist as an isolated genius with individual expression in favour of collective experiments. Her goal of combining art with social interaction gave her a unique position in the art community. The fact that a female artist was behind this work was completely unprecedented.
Her work was not really recognized at the time, and from the 1980s she was less of a public figure. In the last ten years, however, she has made a marked comeback and gained a level of recognition that few artists achieve. Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum bought «Interview» in 2021, and the work remains the largest and most extensive in our collection. The purchase helps give Aurdal the attention she deserves, and several Norwegian museums have made large purchases of her art in recent years.
The word interview is derived from the French entrevue, a combination of the Latin words inter («between») and videre («to see» or «to meet»). The exhibition title «To encounter» is therefore an invitation to a gathering: an encounter between people where both the artwork and the surrounding architecture set clear boundaries. At the same time, they are flexible and «social» enough to include the audience and place human beings at the centre.
In Aurdal’s art, the relationship between form, politics and human experience is paramount. In line with this, the exhibition becomes an opportunity to embrace both the artwork and the space, while at the same time inviting interpersonal relationships and the sharing of experiences.
Siri Aurdal (b. 1937 in Oslo) trained at the National College of Art and Design and the National Academy of Art (1956-1961). She debuted at Høstutstillingen (The Autumn Exhibition) in 1961. Her first plexiglass installation was shown at Galleri Kringla in 1968, and her polyester pipe sculptures, Surroundings, were shown at Kunstnernes Hus in 1969. After participating in important exhibitions at Kunsthall Oslo (2013) and Kunstnernes Hus (2016), her international breakthrough came with the sculpture Onda Volante at the Venice Biennale (2017). She held a solo exhibition at Malmö Konsthall in 2018. Her monumental work Wavelengths can be seen at the National Museum.