We are pleased to invite you to the opening of two concurrent solo exhibitions by Renate Müller and Alex Bag, opening at Kunsthall Stavanger on April 5, 6-8 pm.

In Alex Bag's ironic performance videos, the artist adopts a series of personae to create droll conceptual parodies. With her signature deadpan delivery and deliberately low-tech style, Bag mixes the vernacular of pop culture with irreverently humorous monologues. Performing in multiple guises amidst fragments of pop detritus, Bag skewers the tropes of consumer and media culture. Questioning how we define ourselves in relation to television, fashion, advertising and the art world, she creates mediated parodies that teeter between celebration and critique. Read more here.

Honoring the tradition of German toymakers from the 1800s, Renate Müller is renowned for her handmade jute-and-leather toys—typically animals—which she began designing and producing in the early 1960s. Müller has spent her life in Sonneberg, Germany, which was once the epicenter of world toy manufacture. From an early age, she helped out in her family’s toy factory and later became a student at the Sonneberg Polytechnic for Toy Design, where she was encouraged by a teacher to create toy animals that could be used therapeutically for children with physical and mental handicaps. Inspired by this endeavor, Müller began to create the brightly colored, multi-sized menagerie she is known for today—such as seals, elephants, giraffes, and bears—which debuted at the 1967 Leipzig Trade Fair and were tested (and deemed successful) by German psychiatric hospitals and clinics. Read more here.

We look forward to seeing you at the opening reception!

Kunsthall Stavanger is currently closed for installation. We are hard at work installing two new exhibitions opening Thursday, April 5 at 18:00.  

Renate Müller: 50 Years of Toys and Design presents an exhibition, a playroom and a series of kids' workshops by iconic German toy designer Renate Müller. Honoring the tradition of German toymakers from the 1800s, Renate Müller is renowned for her handmade jute-and-leather toys which she began designing and producing in the early 1960s. 

Concurrently, Kunsthall Stavanger will open a solo exhibition by American artist Alex Bag. In Bag's ironic performance videos, the artist adopts a series of personae to create droll conceptual parodies. With her signature deadpan delivery and deliberately low-tech style, Bag mixes the vernacular of pop culture with irreverently humorous monologues.

We look forward to seeing you at the opening reception!

By Marte Danielsen Jølbo

Textile expressions are burgeoning in contemporary art. This phenomenon is related to an increasing interest in, and prevalence of, craft-based techniques in the international art scene. Throughout the 1900s, many artists strove to liberate textile media from longstanding perceptions about textiles as synonymous with craft and female pastimes. It is therefore now possible to see a more liberal use of textiles in contemporary art as well as great variation in techniques, materials and expressions. In this article, curator and writer Marte Danielsen Jølbo presents practices and tendencies that are central to the current context of textile art in Norway. Rather than trying to give a complete overview of the Norwegian field of textile art, Jølbo use New Materialism and soft logic as a theoretical backdrop to do a close reading of three works of art by, respectively, Elisabeth Haarr, Ann Cathrin November Høibo and Ann Lislegaard, each of whom is a contemporary Norwegian artist. Interspersed in the analyses, Jølbo points to various directions, emerging tendencies and some of the key artists associated with the (Norwegian) textile scene, as well as to philosophy and theories that add new perspectives to the understanding of this increasingly complex field of contemporary art.

The original Norwegian version of this text was included in the the catalogue Ode to a Dishrag, Hymn to a Tiger - Norwegian textile artists 1977-2017.

Artist Ask Bjørlo's artwork Havmenn som tenner månen, (Mermen turning on the moon), 2017, is on view in our main gallery as part of the group exhibition Ode to a dishrag, hymn to a tiger, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Association of Norwegian Textile Artists (NTK). Below, Bjørlo answers our questions about his relationship to the long lineage of textile artists presented here, as well as his fascination with the medium and the influences behind this artwork.