English / 
Norsk 
Norwegian Performance Art
by
Søssa Jørgensen and Geir Tore Holm
In this presentation we will try to narrow down what can be defined as performance art within the Norwegian visual art field. In part 1 we will be looking at these definitions and notions and take a look back into the origin and history of the 1960's.
In part 2 we will continue the historical line to the contemporary and dig deeper into the phenomena.
Definitions and borders:
Performance Art is a relatively new concept within visual art in Norway. The word performance may be related to words such as execution, work, function and happening. We are talking about works of art that are extended in time and space and performed by the artist. Other terms that are related with performance art is Live Art, action art and happenings. Though Live Art is not an art form, but rather a concept that is used in a broader context and may include various expressions such as actions and installations. Action art has its origin with the German political motivated actions in visual art, whilst happenings originated as a term in USA in the 1950's from the Black Hill College environment. By showing work and actions in the same room at the same time, art expressions and juxtapositions were experimented with. A marginalized group was able to oppose the conventions by practising happenings and performance art. The general and further development happened through Fluxus, following the Polish surrealist tradition and the German expressionism. Performance Art is not only practised within visual art, but within theatre, music, literature, film and dance. Within this blend lies one of the signifiers of performance art practise, as the artist draws on various forms and genres, juxtaposing its means and by doing so escapes tradition. Inspiration from interdisciplinary work and collaborations has contributed to develop all the implicated art forms. Performance art is a hybrid, a parasite on other art forms that contributes with the making of something new.
Even though many Norwegian artists studied and lived abroad, especially in Germany and France at the beginning of the 90-s, they did not take inspiration from futurism, dadaism, surrealism or live aspects to a great extent. They did not bring this influence back to the Norwegian art scene. The Norwegian art environment was carrying signs of provincialism, perhaps through fear of making "storm in a glass of water".
The development and experiments within jazz music in the 1960 was perhaps the first arena for these tendencies also for the visual artists, as free jazz was practising visual experiments by its strategies, performance and nature. People with hybrid music experience such as the Korean artist Nam June Paik made a visit to Oslo in the mid 60-s. Paik performed and threw peas on the audience and cut their ties. John Cage visited the National Music College and challenged the strict structure by introducing his "chance-operations". These guests inspired the experimental art environment; the happenings at Club 7 in Oslo must be mentioned in particularly. Among several artists Music professor Kjell Skylstad arranged happenings in dada-and surrealist spirit. Performance art has been hard to recognize for the Norwegian art institutions because of the hybrid and ephemeral nature and documentation has been incomplete because of the same reasons, however the retelling of the pieces has been vivid and this some of the performances have survived as myths.
LOOKING BACK
Visual arts in Norway at the 1950-60 were highly influenced by the hegemony of the lyrical and abstract painting. Younger artists were aware of the tendency and found it to be passive. Norwegian cultural life was proper, mature and comfortingly conservative. Rock had yet not entered in the broad sense or reached the public in Norway and it was not until the end of the 50s and early 60's that European and Norwegian artists took inspiration from happenings in USA and started using live elements as a reaction to the bourgeois painting and what was seen as commercialized culture. The artist now turned to use their bodies and made ephemeral performances without documenting. These appearances took place at exhibition openings and politically motivated happenings. During this time the youth rebellion was growing and it was seen important to break rules and provoke communicative frictions. Performance Art gave opportunities for artiststo "try out" (experiment with) expressions, and a place for political agitators. Performance art has given opportunities for direct response and reaction in culture and society. The relation with the audience also became more direct, in contradiction to the distant form of the traditional art object. The actions challenged audience and the artist exposed himself to a groundbreaking experience.
In 1967, after many years of exile in Sweden, Kjartan Slettemark did what can be considered as the first performance in Norway. At the Autumn exhibition he sat on a bear skin outside the Artist House in Oslo wearing rose painted Levis clothes playing solitaire with five thousand cards marked with the portrait of Mao. He made yet another appearance as a poodle at the Henie Onstad Art Centre in 1975. Another remarkable performance was the occupation of the modern museum (1970) and his journey to USA (1975) travelling with a passport photo as Richard Nixon. Kjartan Slettemark continued with his intense ritualistic performances, close to shamanistic séances and managed to unite political, anarchistic messages with art and magic.
When Willibald Storn and people from the Skippergata environment in Oslo demonstrated against the opening of Henie Onstad Art centre (1968) it was done with a performance. Per Kleiva barked as the bourgeois dog out of control. Thus Henie Onstad Art centre took the critique into consideration and developed towards becoming a highly important centre for experimental art in Norway, holding several international exhibitions. Happenings were also represented through examples such as Willibald Storns “Coca Donald Society don't take me” (UKS, 1969) and Group 66'-sex and partnership exhibition (Bergen Kunstforening, 1966).
Despite the synthesis in the 60-s, the joining art forms and the synergy effect it created, this movement was considerably numbed by a growing political correctness in the broader culture environment in the 70's. Yet the energy from the activism of the 60’s had opened up for alternative expressions amongst the artist in Norway.
PART 2
After the 70-s a forceful and frivolous energy entered the Norwegian culture life. The reactions to the political correctness, combined with a growing punk-attitude, created a violent energy boost. In the aftermath, the beginning of the 80's seemed like a boiling pan. A lot of the activity was cantered at the exploration ofthe artistidentity and ego and not necessarily including the audience. Performance was at this stage a small part of a bigger setting, performed at concerts or parties and not meant to last beyond the moment.
Focus on the physicality of the body and sexuality was manifested in abstract, expressive painting but also in performance. Examples are Wencke Mühleisens violent and physical performance work in the 1980's. Her expressive project stands in stark contrast to other performances with a literal and theoretical reference. Some of the pioneers for a more complex and content related form was Inghild Karlsen. She lectured at the National Art Academy in Oslo in 1982-83, where the "Anneksklassen" had initiated a method of teaching where performance art was included.
The Icelandic performance artist Magnus Poulsson was a teacher at SKA for many years and introduced a new generation of artists to a broad meaning and conception of artistic practise. Amongst the students was Kjetil Skøien.
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Skøien has since developed his performance practise more in the lines of theatre and dance but together with Hilmar Fredriksen and Kurt Johannessen, Kjetil Skøien promoted a significant performance genre where emotions and the mystic played an essential part. Formal issues influenced by international impulses seem to have inspired the three artists that yet seem to have developed different types of work.
“From years four before” with Kurt Johannessen, retold by Christel Sverre, visual artist and producer: “It was in 1983, I believe, in the great hall in Bergen Art Union. It was the first time I saw a performance by Kurt Johannessen. He was still a student at the art academy and did a performance with a woman; I believe it was his girlfriend. At the floor a big quadrate plastic clothe perhaps 6 x 6 meter. Buckets of paint all primary colours, they spilt the paint and lied down and rolled in it in all variations. It was not like Yves Klein using women, as paintbrushes, Kurt and the woman were both active and the paint quickly got mixed and turned dark. People were sitting on chairs gathering around, some were standing, I left before they were finished”
Music has both channelled raw energy and created a free space alongside the object orientated and more commercial art form. Reactions have also been aimed at the overshadowing decorative tradition in Norwegian art. One bad boy has been Polish born Andrej Nebb with his myth surrounding concerts and performances with the band Holy Toy, where amongst other butchered vast and other industrial material played an important part.
At the Art academy in Trondheim more performance projects appeared in the early 80's. The visit by a group of Icelandic artists in 1983 encouraged a small avalanche of performance art activities. The performance group Tremulators and a performance band with artists like Siri Austeen, Trond Kittelsen og Anders Elsås was formed at KIT. During the same period Camilla Wærenskjold and Lars Paalgard aslo educated from KIT. Artists like John Cage, Laurie Andersson, Stuart Brisley, Al Hansson, Jeff Hendricks, Henning Christensen and Joseph Beuys visited the academy and both stimulated and boosted the performance activities in Norway.
During the 80's the Henie Onstad Art centre played an important role as port for international impulses, studio, sound and video workshops and also functioned as a gathering point for interdisciplinary art forms.
In the late 80's and beginning of the 90's Bergen University, department of theatre, was instrumental in the founding of groups like Baktruppen and Verdensteateret, both collaborative projects working interdisciplinary with visual art, theatre, music and literature. The earlier mentioned Kjetil Skøien also marked this stage with his project Passage Nord though working more specifically with theatre. The dance environment now also turned to performance art, Ellen Johannesen, Ina Christel Johansen and Ingun Bjørnsgaard should be mentioned. The tendency of staging the artist as a performer for camera also started in the early 90's in context with a new focus on the artist-identity-ego and the need of exposure.
“Pervo Provo” is retold by Kristine Dybwad , a textile artist “In 1986 punk related performances was shown in Røros, Smeltehytta, Ørkenen and Fellessætra. These were collaborations between Helge Sten, Erik Snedsbøl, Vegard Moen, Anders Wittusen and Wiggo Sunde. Some of these performances were so wild that steal netting was installed between audience as the performers were chopping various props. This was the running up to the tour "Pervo Provo" by Erik Snedsbøl and Helge Sten (1990) Uffa i Trondheim, Blitz in Oslo and USF, Bergen, where I was. In these performances their own taboos such as mistreating of animals, incest, rape and Nazism was addressed. They were acting as active criminals, vicious and mean raging the stage. Long noses wearing black tricots whilst singing the Norwegian national anthem "Ja vi elsker" waving Norwegian flags with swastikas on the one side making hail Nazi to the audience. A baby in a cradle was mistreated. In the other phase they were sitting with big heads and big beaks, they hit the dolls with over-sized hands and it looked like the dolls were raped. A creepy atmosphere, strong sound, green and red lighting. Lasting about three quarters of an hour. Erik Snedsbøl had made the props, amongst other things a cow that was sawed in pieces by a chain saw. Helge Sten made the music partly analogue sound tapes played and re-winded.”
The Autumn Exhibition in Oslo has occasionally showed performance art in spite of its rather conventional salons and exhibitions. Liv Reidun Brakstad, Rita Marhaug, Take One and Kunstkatering showed performances in the late 90 s. Places like Mellom rommene in Bergen, Action in Trondheim, PiG i Oslo, One Night Stand, Oslo Band Stand, Zoom and British Links G.U.N., Zoolunge, G9, Yazzyd, UKS and the art academies have sporadically been arenas for performance art. “Art alive” at the museum for contemporary art in November 1999 filled the museum and showed to a record in public attendance.
This exhibition tried to capture some of the performance activity in Norwegian visual art, dance and theatre and showed some of the communication potential within performance art. In Lillehammer the project “Art in nature” invited artists like Tor Arne Samuelsens, who performed “Transission” in 1997. Art in relation to nature seems to be a repeated theme in Norwegian art in general and also in performance art. The focus on masculinity, sexual transcendence and gay sexuality seems to serve as means to express various kinds of transcendence; one clear example is John Øivind Eggesbø's "man and eel" project.
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"Sky Safari" with Ina Eriksen retold by Egil Martin Kurdøl, artist an initiator of art in nature: “Sky Safari was a dance and choreography for plane. It happened at an arranged time on midsummer night at 8 pm 20. at Vingenesvika in the north end of Mjøsa. A big car stereo was rigged up, Palace of Pleasure. Then a plane flies in at low altitude by the water in the direction of the audience. Suddenly flying straight up, then down in a spiral, the choreography was choreographed to the music so it was possible to recognize dance movements. For the audience the plane was the focus and the way it behaved in the space between the hills and the water. The outdoor area was turned into a stage and the plane became the dancer, before disappearing into the sky lines.”
Visual artist and initiator of Gallery G.I. Lotte Konow Lund retells: “In the first half of the 90's it was a bit of a taboo to work with performance art, it didn't match with the new intellectualism and the restructuring of theory and education at the art academy. A few attempts were made by Elisabeth Mathisen, amongst others, who experimented with performance for camera. Vincent Lunges Institute also showed several action pieces and there was an underground movement in Stavanger, where I, Jan Høvo and another performer did "Real nudity or nude reality?" We were inspired by a photo of Madonna (the pop icon) when she was standing naked wearing high heals hitching along the highway. Jone Paal Skjensvold/Jone Vold also did some solo performances at that time. St.Olavs Fund was reopened at SKA and political actions and parties were also arranged in connection with the founding of the figurative department and the academy-reform designed by Gudmund Hernes. St. Olavs Fund did a performance where they served baked buns with written notes saying, "Even in good days there are authorities that sucks". The buns were served simultaneously with Cornelis Wresvijks song of Oslo.”
Activism, institutional criticism, breaking context / bending of concepts may stand as keywords for the socially orientated and context aware art in the 90's. A new political awareness grew from this and much of what can be characterised as performance art could also be characterized as social interactions during this time.
Contrary to the interest of popular culture and pop music was also renewed and at the art academy in Trondheim performance, sound and music related work was presented by Yngvild Færøy, Søssa Jørgensen, Kim Hiorthøy, Vegar Moen, Helge Sten, Matt Burt and The Four.
Performance art has by the art institutions been seen as too demanding and difficult to exhibit. The resistance has also been grounded in the hybrid position and "unstable" nature of performance art. It did not adapt for a public museum concept. Performance art still does not have the selling or commercial potential as physical objects, photo or paintings. But this is precisely why performance art is interesting both as a communication tool and in its potential to evoke reactions on conventions.
Søssa Jørgensen (b.1968), visual artist and producer, has been working with performance as a solo artist, with the group Eriksen/Fremme/Færøy/Jørgensen, and Buckle Bunnies (Siri Austeen and Søssa Jørgensen) She is also the co editor of ”balloon magazin” - http://www.ballongmagasinet.com
Geir Tore Holm (b.1966) visual artist and writer. Solo performances ”The Burger King (1995) Are you still my friend? (1999) Geir Tore Holm Christmas Show and Geir Tore Holm Band.
Translation and Editor Anne-Marte E.Rygh.