back on track
Momentum – Nordic festival of Contemporary Art - 3rd Edition
At last Momentum is happening again, after being postponed from 2003 to 2004. The recent festivals in 1998 and 2000 put Momentum on the international art map, and we are happy to announce that from the 22nd of May until the 27th of June, the city of Moss in Norway will again be the centre of attention for everyone with an interest in the Nordic contemporary art scene. The centre of the festival during these interesting summer weeks will be the old Moss Brewery, which is also the venue for Momentum’s main show. The show, curated by Caroline Corbetta and Per Gunnar Tverbakk, will present some 35 artists. During the festival, Momentum will embrace the city and region with further exhibitions at local galleries, literature readings, film showings and much more.
The list of artists participating in Momentum 04 will be published in early March.
Curators’ Statement
Momentum 04 presents a selection of new and established artists with various connections to the Nordic region. While the focus remains on the artists’ individual practices, the exhibition will also attempt to investigate the structures of the different societies in the region.
The exhibition will include a number of artists who investigate inherited and existing political and social structures characteristic of the Nordic region from subjective points of view. Such structures include the notions of stability and welfare, the virtual lack of friction, the self-contempt of the well fed, the small well-organized local communities and the conceptions of the landscapes that surround them. Other artists will present more existentially-oriented investigations.
Through these heterogeneous stories the exhibition seeks to question the validity of the consensus-based socio-political system in the Nordic region and its ability to embrace a greater cultural and subjective diversity.
Over the past decade art has been characterised by an orientation away from the art object and towards diverse forms of interdisciplinary activity localised in the social sphere. For Momentum 04 we have opted for a main exhibition in an institutional framework in which the works use the exhibition space as a point of departure to address themes relating to society and politics.
In addition to the main exhibition set up in the former brewery of Moss, the town itself, with its architectural and social environments, will also be drawn into the discussion via a series of public projects in and around the local community. The aim of this programme is not to reveal what is uniquely local, but rather to encourage public debate on many levels, by placing the environment of this small town in a broader perspective.
Newsletter
Today we launch the first of several newsletters which will countdown to May 22nd. In this month’s edition you will find statements from director Jorn Mortensen, curators Caroline Corbetta and Per Gunnar Tverbakk, as well as a glimpse inside the building of this year’s main venue.
Please feel free to download our English edition from www.momentum.no/nor/nyhetsbrev1_04.pdf or our Norwegian edition from www.momentum.no/eng/newsletter1_04.pdf.
A special “festival package” will be announced soon, giving everybody a chance to get a first-hand feeling for this year’s Momentum.
For further information, please contact:
Christian Spidsberg
PR and Communications Manager
Phone: +47 99 29 95 57 or +47 69 20 66 44
E-mail: cs@momentum.no
