Vestlandsutstillingen 2019

Vestlandsutstillingen is an annual touring exhibition, showing new works by artists with a connection to the West Coast of Norway. In 2019 the exhibition was curated by Marte Danielsen Jølbo.

"The first time I visited the artist Tone Wolff Kalstad at her studio, she described the feeling of coming home to Sogn og Fjordane as a physical experience. Every time she takes the nine-hour bus ride from Oslo, there is a turn at Lærdal where the typical western landscape appears for the first time. She explained that when the bus rounds that turn, her knees start to tingle and the pieces inside of her start to fall into place.

I was in New York in 2012 with a group of artists from Stavanger. When Norwegian artist Margrethe Aanestad became acquainted with the American artist Andrea Ray who lived and worked in a small apartment in Manhattan, they discussed where they found inspiration and what they did when facing a creative block. The solution for Aanestad was to get outside and walk in nature, to climb a hill and look out as far as possible. Ray's counter to this was that if she needed space, she just closed her eyes.

In the summer of 2018, the artist Gunnhild Torgersen introduced me to the small book Les Lieux de Marguerite Duras (The places of Marguerite Duras). The book delves into the role of different places in the life and the art of the author and filmmaker Marguerite Duras. Here, the concept of place unfolds both as something concrete such as a physical location you may have visited, and as a memory that can be awakened through a smell or made visible through art. In the book, Hanne Ørstavik writes in the preface that she thinks that we as humans also serve as places for one another. That a space is created in a relationship between two people, and that this is in fact a specific place of its own.

In the novel Vestlandet, Erlend O. Nødtvedt depicts two friends who embark on a road trip to find "the real Western Norway." At the same time, there is a struggle against the centralized power that will erode the true Western Norway, or more simply "kill Western Norway". An image forms of a Western Norwegian landscape and culture characterized by eternal rainfall and struggle against the elements (as well as against government officials).

The annual Vestlandustillingen exhibition shows artists who are affiliated with Western Norway. They must have been born there, have lived there, or in some other way have a strong relationship that gives them a sense of connection to the place. It made me think about what Western Norway really is and what such an association entails. Starting from the 35 selected artists' works, We Are The Places questions the elements that comprise a place, the relationship between society and place, and how we define them and are defined by them.

The group exhibition will tour Western Norway, following its traditional format. Additionally, seven artists have been invited to produce site-specific works that will be on view only in the locations for which they were created. The exhibition also includes a publication that serves as an expanded viewing space for six of the participating artists and which includes an in-depth essay in which art is woven into a contemporary analysis of Western Norway as both concept and place."

– Curator Marte Danielsen Jølbo, December 2018