FACTS

 

COLLABORATORS

Artist:	A K Dolven
Producer:	KORO - Public Art Norway
Architect:	Trude Mardal
Curator:	Kristine Jærn Pilgaard
Project manager URO:	Bo Krister Wallström
Entrepeneur:	Ansnes as
Engineers:	Asle Gudim, Norconsult and Arne Dolven
Composer:	Rolf Wallin
Bell foundery:	Olsen Nauen Klokkestøperi as
Co-curator:	Gaby Hartel
Artist-assistant:	Magnus Jorde
Graphic design:	Onestarpress / Christoph Boutin
Bell player, City Hall:	Vegard Sandholt
Accoustical authority:	Brekke og Strand Akustikk

SUPPORTED BY
Ansnes as
Arts Council, Norway
The Freedom of Expression Foundation
Wilkinson Gallery London

OPENING
Saturday 6th of February 2 pm

Inauguration speech: Noisezwe Bakwa
Composer: Rolf Wallin
Joik: Ánde Somby

The artist will be present

After the inauguration ceremony everyone is invited by KORO to a reception at Kunsthallen on Tullinløkka from 3-6 pm.

UNTUNED BELL
The bell suspended above Tullinløkka square was removed for Oslo City Hall because it was out of tune with the other 48 bells. Since then it has been mute on the ground. Now the bell is temporarily installed on Tullinløkka by artist A K Dolven. The 1,5 tonnes bell will sound again, when you step on the pedal available on the square.

Tullinløkka was once a central meeting place in Oslo, and was used for public gatherings and manifestations, among other things. Untuned Bell raises questions regarding deviation, normality and order. The project wants to reclaim Tullinløkkas history as a meeting place, thus initiating a discussion around the squares future. At the same time, important questions are raised concerning our common ownership and use of public space.

Adjacent to the work, a 12 metres long poster-wall will be raised,. Here people are given the possibility to voice their opinions, and draw attention to matters they find important, and relevant today. Untuned Bell calls each individual to make a sound for the untuned, and to voice their opinion about the general attitude towards deviation from norms that exist in our world.

KORO – Public Art Norway
Public Art Norway (KORO) is the government’s professional body for art in public spaces, and the country’s largest art producer. The total art-production budget in KORO is 50 million Norwegian Kroner per year, from own budgets and communal co-operations. Planning, production, and quality control of art projects are core activities. Through KORO’s new outdoor-scheme URO, 2009 has seen the production of art projects in public spaces like, among others, Offshore by artist George Osodi, Palestinian Embassy by Camilla Martens and Toril Goksøyr, Untuned Bell by A K Dolven. Additionally URO co-produces around 20 art projects per year spread across the whole country, and works to deploy art-works such as Liberte by Lars Ramberg.

A K DOLVEN (b. 1953) http://www.akdolven.com/
Artist. A K Dolven is based in London and Lofoten, and works within several media. A K Dolven, educated in Paris and Oslo, is regarded as one of Norways most acknowledged artists nationally and internationally. She has exhibited – and is represented in a number of central institutions and collections worldwide. She was Festival exhibitor in Bergen 2004, and her work Engel is permanently placed in public spaces in Lodz, Derry, Berlin and Henie-Onstad in Oslo. A K Dolvens works often depict scenes from every-day life. In these works she stages the mundane, to show that nothing in life is ordinary. Untuned Bell is out of pitch; not tuned  in relation to the majority. Here a room is opened, for reflections around deviation from norm, and with a welcome for audience participation.

KRISTINE JÆRN PILGAARD (b.1977)
Free-lance curator with focus on art in public spaces. In 2008 Pilgaard curated Lene Berg’s Stalin by Picasso, Folketeateret in Oslo, a project that was stopped by party secretary Martin Kolberg. This initiated wide-spanning debates around the relationship between art, power and politics. Pilgaard was in 2009 curator for Nachspiel/Vorspiel, Vestfossen Art laboratory’s summer exhibition, where the last 10 Festival exhibitors in Bergen each invited one other Norwegian artist to exhibit with them.

BO KRISTER WALLSTRÔM (b.1962)
Senior-advisor at KORO presents KORO’s grant and production scheme: URO – Art Projects in the Norwegian Public. With this new scheme, KORO wishes to strengthen art projects that place themselves in a political/social context, challenge and examine the relationship between aestethics, ethics and context, and at the same time to contribute toward a greater diversity of art projects and initiators. Art production in the Norwegian public has increased significantly during the last years, and these projects increasingly gain status as meeting places, based on the idea of the public space as a political space, and as such an arena for current discussions. Bo Krister Wallström artist/curator is previous chairman of UKS, Oslo Kunsthall and director of Bergen Kunsthall. He is a member of the artist-collective Baktruppen.

TRUDE MARDAL (b.1981)
Architect, educated at the Art Academy’s School for Architecture in Copenhagen, and based there. Employed at Entasis (DK) Architects since 2006, with projects as free-lancer in own company on the side. Mardal has worked with city-planning in different scales through Entasis, f.ex. the large plan for development of the Carlsberg-area in Copenhagen. As part of her education, Mardal has proposed a project for condensation of populations in North-Norway, which this year will be presented at UN’s conference in Rio De Janeiro – World Urban Forum. Untuned Bell is an extension of these urban projects – a work where experience with the public space can be approached on a closer scale – an including piece for engagement and understanding of the city’s spaces and spaciality.

DR. GABY HARTEL (b.1959)
is a freelance cultural historian and curator. She works as a writer for German cultural radio, as a contributor to exhibition catalogues (eg.: the Centre Pompidou, the Venice Biennale), as a lecturer (Hochschule für Künste, Bremen, Berlin and Oslo) and curator (eg.: “Samuel Beckett/Bruce Nauman”, Kunsthalle Wien 2000, with Michael Glasmeier). She writes mainly about subjects in the field between media and literature. Her publications include her dissertation on Samuel Beckett in the context of visual arts (2003), a biography on Samuel Beckett (2006), a piece about silliness as subversive art in Gilbert&George (2004), one on the effect on disembodied voices in Radio (2005), and on the writings of Agnes Martin (forthcoming). Together with Michael Glasmeier, Gaby Hartel is currently editing a book on Beckett’s film and television work.

TULLINLØKKA
Tullinløkka, between the National Gallery and Historical Museum, has been used as skating rink, playground, petrol station and meeting place for the public. Development of the area has happened slowly, but not lacking plans and ideas on what the square should be used for. Originally, Tullinløkka is the northern most part of one of the largest field in Kristianias old city-ground, Ruseløkka. These fields were originally supposed to be a kind of common-ground for the city’s inhabitants, but Oslo’s richest and most powerful quickly secured the ownership of the best areas. Tullinløkka was often used as a gathering place for demonstrations and manifestations – lead by, among others, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Tullinløkka was later regulated for public buildings with an open square in the middle surrounded by green area. In the 1960’s, the area was used as a parkin-lot. During the last years, the questions has then been raised about expanding the museums with a new building across the square – contradictory to many peoples wish to regain Tullinløkkas function as an open public space, or park.