EXHIBITIONS ELSEBETH JØRGENSEN
WAYS OF LOSING ONESELF IN AN IMAGE
The outcome of this invitation will be diverse, and consist of a two part solo exhibition, located within Hordaland Art Centre and the large glass spaces located on the façade at the Picture Collection on street level; a series of public lectures, a seminar at the University of Bergen and communal walk-and-talks during the exhibition period.
Jørgensen’s works have for many years circled different ideas of documentation of places, historicity and montage storytelling, as well as how archiving processes and construction of collective memory implies both ambivalence as well as dilemmas in relation to ideas of preservation, selection, the creation of systems and the meaning of the subjective gaze.
During one year she has observed the whole archive, and in Ways of Losing Oneself in an Image she groups historical documents with her own registrations. The project arises out of an interest in the potential for poetic narratives within the archive, and the inaccessible part of the collection: the not yet registered material, as well as the site’s own meta-archive material. In Elsebeth Jørgensen’s process fact is mixed with fiction, and she reflects on how historical information just as well can be a hypothetical pondering of our notion of the future.
A book will be produced following the exhibition with text contributions by Solveig Greve (Senior Academic Librarian, The Picture Collection of the University of Bergen), Anne Szefer Karlsen (curator and director of Hordaland Art Centre), Michnea Mircan (curator and director of Extra City, Antwerp), Sanne Kofod Olsen (art historian and director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde) and Joacim Sprung (PhD candidate in Art History and Visual Culture, Copenhagen University Amager).
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Elsebeth Jørgensen (1970, DK) works conceptually and site related with photography, video, sound and spatial montages emerging from long-term research projects, very often in historical archives. After her education at Royal Danish Academy (1995-2002) she has shown in several group exhibitions. Selected solo exhibitions include Cinemagic Tour at Overgaden, Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen (2005), the three part exhibition Cinemagic Tour: Scenes from an Imaginary Place, Deveron Arts, Huntly, Aberdeenshire (2005-06) and Arkivet: Cinemagic Tour & Crystal Palac, Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde (2010).The last ten years she has made several exhibitions and publications in collaborative projects with other artists and writers. Elsebeth Jørgensen founded and ran APPENDIKS in Copenhagen – a project space for contemporary art, visual culture, theory and publication, together with Pia Rönicke, Jacob Fabricius and Lotte Boesen (2003-2004). Parts of her practice is realised through developing works for extended art spaces, like the project Unofficial Deposited Records in collaboration with Pia Rönicke, Tate Modern, London (2005-2010).
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The exhibition and book is produced by Hordaland Art Centre, supported by The Picture Collection of the University of Bergen, BKH-project support from Hordaland Art Centre, Culture Point North, and Danish Art Council.
Ways of Losing oneself in an image – Elsebeth Jørgensen is curated by Anne Szefer Karlsen.
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ABOUT THE 35-YEAR PROGRAMME AT HORDALAND ART CENTRE
2011 marks the 35th year of the Hordaland Art Centre, and we are creating a programme exploring ideas of histories and futures based on different thematics and institutional frameworks.
Do we need to re-lecture the past? How do we prepare for the future? These are two immanent questions to ask in the present. Is it possible to act as if the present is suspended above both history and future? Or is it lurking below both? Maybe is it weighed down by history at the same time as it is longing and striving for the future? These and other related questions will be asked in this one year programme containing six exhibitions, several lectures and seminars, as well as text production and publications.
This anniversary programme intentionally avoids the institution’s self-mythologising approach, but rather focuses on the idea of history and future as the present’s support structure. Nostalgia and hope are two component of how we long for what has been and what is to come, and can act as poetic notions to understand the present.
