Bergen Kunsthall
Bergen Kunsthall
Address : Rasmus Meyers alle 5
www.kunsthall.no
Ane Hjort Guttu
Festival Exhibition 2015
Opening
28. 5. 13:00
Tours
Every Sunday 14:00
27. 5. 17:00 Members
31. 5. 13:00 Families
Platform
30. 5. 13:00 Ane Hjort Guttu
Ane Hjort Guttu is the 2015 Festival Artist. This exhibition will present a new body of work, commissioned by Bergen Kunsthall, which investigates issues of power, freedom, the role and responsibility of the artist, and the possibilities and limitations of so called ‘political art’.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is a major new film, shot on location in Bergen, about a young art student who assumes the role of a beggar on the streets of the city. The work takes up a challenging position amidst the current debate on the prohibition of begging in Norway and the authorities’ treatment of the Romanian Roma. At the same time it gathers together a number of themes to which Guttu constantly returns in her works: the use of and access to public space; the scope of action for art and artists in the face of a politically sensitive situation; how we can or should position ourselves in relation to poverty and inequality; or whether effective political action is best achieved outside of the frame of art?
These themes are further explored through a number of other works in the exhibition which investigate the way in which the visual space of the city is changing. The privatization and commercialization of public space is another current issue in Bergen, where the municipality has recently signed a contract with an international agency for a significant increase in urban advertising. Set against the debate around begging, it highlights a contradictory and complex debate around the use of and rights to public space, and the way these different activities and demands also infringe on our personal space and psyche.
