Permanenten Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum

September 28 - Januray 27

Material Information

Zarouhie Abdalian (US), Abbas Akhavan (CA), Danai Anesiadou (BE), Siri Brekke (NO), Asli Cavusoglu (TK), Hilde Angel Danielsen (NO), Goldin+Senneby (SE), Hadley&Maxwell (CA), Iman Issa (EG), Katrine Meisfjord (NO), Alex Morrison (CA), Shahryar Nashat (CH), Amalia Pica (AR), Praneet Soi (IN), Ola Vasiljeva (LV/NL) og Aoi Yoshizawa (JP/FI)

Spotlight on the production and collection of objects in a globalized world.

Arts & crafts and museums of the decorative arts are closely related, both originating around 1850 in response to the negative consequences of the industrial revolution – aesthetic decline and alienation from production – referred to by Marx as ‘commodity fetishism’. In contrast craftsmen concerned themselves with every stage of the process from concept to finished product.

Juan Gaitán, curator of the exhibition Material Information – the 2012 thematic exhibition of the Norwegian Arts and Crafts Association, asks why craftsmanship is still dominated by the mindset of the 1800s, while industrial production has been radically updated.

The kind of industrial production that is considered a benchmark of European craftsmanship has almost disappeared from the Western world today. It has been outsourced and fragmented, and its products are global and anonymous.

This exhibition not only poses a challenge to the area of arts and crafts but also to the museum. The artists turn the role of the museum as collector and storyteller upside down, and in doing so deprive the museum of its monopoly over the representation of the objects in its collection and the narratives associated with them.

Material Information brings a set of contemporary practices together in order to present a multiple meditation on the new and old objects of industry.

The exhibition is curated by Juan A. Gaitán, and will take place in three different venues and around the city of Bergen. The main exhibition will take place here, at the Art Museums of Bergen Permanenten between September 28th and January 31st.

May 8, 2012 - May 8, 2019

Silver Treasure

For centuries Bergen was Norway’s key production site for beautiful and prestigious objects made from gold and silver.´The Silver Treasure´ shows you a variety of these.

Permanenten (West Norway Museum of Decorative Art) is the repository for Norway’s largest private collection of Bergen silver, which is presented together with the museum’s own holdings and deposits from other museums.

Bergensian goldsmiths
For centuries Bergen was Norway’s key production site for beautiful and prestigious objects made from gold and silver. These objects represent Norway’s foremost classic handcraft. Here you will find tankards, drinking vessels, goblets, terrines, snuffboxes, silverware, jewellery and other objects from the 16th through 20th cen.

The exhibition
The museum has commissioned Kristin Jarmund Architects to design a ‘magpie’s nest’ of display cases for the objects. An audio guide with discussions about the objects will be available, as well as a database of information about Bergensian silver and gold. Films about the production process will also be shown.