HARE. Lepus timidus. Class: Mammalia. Order: Lagomorpha. Family: Leporidae. 2019-08-05. Vuddu, Levanger, Trøndelag. 72 m.a.s.l. From “Observations of new Norwegian fauna in the years 2014 – 2022” © Helge Skodvin.The Summer Show: Helge Skodvin + Knut Egil Wang + Uncertain States Scandinavia
Exhibition opening Thursday 6 June at 18.00
The banality and wildness of small-town life is depicted through tuja hedges, gossip mirrors and new Norwegian garden fauna when two of the country’s most serious humorists in Norwegian photography exhibit together for the first time.
Over the course of eight years, Bergen photographer Helge Skodvin traveled around Norway and photographed the country’s new fauna in plastic, fiberglass, concrete and metals – an expedition that resulted in what he himself refers to as a zoological low-threshold offer. None of the animals in Skodvin’s “Observations of New Norwegian Fauna in the Years 2014–2022” are real, but all the pictures are. The motifs have been found, observed and recorded in their natural element, among village animals, garden spots, central discounts, terraced houses, driveways and flats.
The two-legged creatures that inhabit the country’s cities and towns have left the stage to the artificial animals they have chosen to decorate their surroundings with, which in their most daring way break with the otherwise razor-sharp fortress walls of tuja hedges and uniformed facades that adorn the 69 images in the series. The exhibition shows a selection of these, together with texts by both Skodvin himself and a specially written essay by Bjørn Hatterud.
At about the same time, Skodvin’s colleague Knut Egil Wang traveled to the town of Nykøbing Mors in Denmark, where the images in the series “Searching for Jante” were photographed. Janteloven was described for the first time in the novel “En flyktning krysser sitt spor” (1933) by the Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose. In the novel, Jante is a small town where the Jante Law is an expression of people’s ability to keep both each other and themselves down. The physical model for Sandemose’s Jante is precisely the town of Nykøbing Mors. Wang wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Janteloven, and find out if it can be captured on film, and not least if it is still capable of saying something about who we Scandinavians are.
Like Skodvin, Wang has not staged any of the images in the series, and the omnipresent absurdity permeates both universes. Both photo series were published in 2023 in two different photo books by the same publisher (Journal). At the exhibition opening, both artists will be present and there will be an artist talk about each of the projects. For the second year in a row, Uncertain States Scandinavia (USSC) has also been invited to create a special edition of their newspaper, this time with nine contemporary photographers who engage in dialogue with Skodvin and Wang’s work. In addition, USSC will take over the project space with two video installations, while the newspaper will be distributed free of charge to all visitors to Sukkerbiten from a specially built newsstand.
Many thanks to Fritt Ord and Oslo municipality for their support of Fotografihuset’s exhibition program 2024.
