Pyramid

In the exhibition Pyramid at Haugar Art Museum, we encounter ceramics, metal and textiles in three distinctive practices.

Bjørn Mortensen, Damla Kilickiran and Ann Cathrin November Høibo twist and turn the techniques to connect them to broader cultural tendencies. Ceramics, metal and textiles set up encounters with the world outside art, where the proximity to everyday materials connect them to culture and history.

Geometric forms and a precise use of materials are among the hallmarks of modernism in art. The materials have as their primary purpose to point inwards at themselves. When a work makes visible the conditions of its own design – be it a clay vessel, a graphic print or woven fabric – the artist has succeeded in expressing the modern condition. Real life is rarely that simple.

Everything we touch comes from somewhere. Materials such as ceramics, metal and textiles carry their own stories. The works in this exhibition connect material culture, technique, craft traditions and physical properties. An inclusive concept of culture holds that art encompasses everything we do not have to do – how food tastes, regardless of its nutritional content. You have to move around, but you don’t have to dance, as Brian Eno put it.

The pyramid is the symbol of a hierarchy that lasts into eternity. It is connected to higher powers. But the pyramid is also a method for turning a pile of stone into a monument. Its surface obscures more than it reveals. No matter how we turn the pyramid, the corners all point outwards.

The exhibition is supported by Anders Jahres Humanitære Stiftelse