The exposition outlines artistic terms and categories in relation to my artistic practice. Terms have been taken loosely from 'Art Now, Vol. 3', Hans Werner Holzwarth (ed.), Cologne: Taschen, 2012.
About the artistic notion of the postmodern:
"The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts forward the unrepresentable in presentation itself; that which denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable; that which searches for new presentations, not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart a stronger sense of the unrepresentable. A postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher: the text he writes, the work he produces are not in principle governed by pre-established rules, and they cannot be judged according to a determining judgment, by applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. Those rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking for. The artist and the writer, then, are working without rules in order to formulate the rules of what will have been done. Hence the fact that work and text have the character of an event; hence also they always come too late for their author, or, what amounts to the same thing, their being put into work, their realisation (mise en oeuvre) always begin too soon. 'Post modern' would have to be understood according to the paradox of the future (post) anterior (modo)."
Jean-Francois Lyotard, 'The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge', trans. by G. Bennington and B. Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984, p. 81.
"A Postmodern Painting (Et Postmoderne Maleri)"
Postmodernism in visual art can be described as a variety of reactions to modernism. Notably anti-authoritarian in attitude, postmodern artists refuse to accept any one style as exclusively valid.
The French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard declares the era of grand historical narratives to be over. At the same time, artists show a renewed interest in art history. They twist traditions, use quotations and recycle older works in so-called pastiches. In this way, they undermine the modernist idea that art must be innovative and original."
Oslo National Museum, 2024.