Oslo 0179
Norway
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 12–5pm
During the last two years of isolation, Fotogalleriet has kept its ear to the ground, studying the tectonic movements that give rise and reasoning to institutional life. How do people come together to shape representation? How do they demand alternative and novel structures, facilitating vital discourses? What is lacking and faltering in the (cultural) system? As we look back at the formation of Fotogalleriet, close to half a century ago, demands for a more equitable future have since intensified. We navigate rituals of institutional building, not only to explore sensations, expectations, and fantasies of history, rather, to bring these considerations into the present.
The year 2022 will be dedicated to structures, to the process of making and unmaking an institution as a site of gathering, display and presence. Who is present—and why—in these public spaces of recognition? How do absentees fit into the image? During this entire year, Fotogalleriet will engage with perspectives that challenge given norms and structures, channelling the desire for a different future. We are excited to share an overview of 2022’s planned projects, through which this engagement will emanate.
Claiming Space
Group exhibition
January 22–March 6, 2022
Based on discussions about how diversity, representation, and accountability should increasingly characterize the art field and public institutions, Fotogalleriet invited Skeiv Verden (Queer World) for an institutional “take-over.” The project Claiming Space will be the first of its kind in a public art institution in Norway, with Skeiv Verden’s chairperson Bassel Hatoum, as curator. In collaboration with architect Antoine Fadel, assisted in its realization by Samer Hayek, Hatoum will transform Fotogalleriet’s exhibition space into a visible public forum. As a public exhibition space for art, Fotogalleriet functions as a place for representation and image production that influences material inclusion and exclusion. As Norway’s primary interest organization for LGBTIQ+ people with a minority background, Skeiv Verden strives for an expanding of diversity in representation. Its mission is a society where everyone can live full lives, with the freedom to openly express their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear of discrimination. By giving Skeiv Verden the role of curator, a position of power and definition within the art world, Fotogalleriet believes different demands can come together to contribute actively and ask for new measures within and outside of the art field.
The project strives to break with a structural pattern that lies deep within the art institution’s unconsciousness: aesthetic normativization. A series of events, produced with the assistance of Miki Gebrelul, will engage activists, artists, and spokespersons for individuals and groups from different backgrounds to offer an interdisciplinary approach to politics of acceptance and belonging, and production and distribution of images. The projects address many issues, such as freedom of expression and the articulation of minority experiences revolving around cultural practices, housing policy, activism, queer nightlife, security, human rights legislation, and more. A key focal point will be the ways in which images affect feelings of (un)security.
Contributing artists to the exhibition include Damien Ajavon, Chai Saeidi, and Ahmed Umar. Performances by Carl Aquilizan, Mohammed Mohammed, and Hamid Waheed.
Whenever possible, the public (and private) program will be made available on Fotogalleriet’s website and social media.
Queer Icons
Thematic exhibition
Spring
The exhibition Queer Icons is the result of a series of meetings that photographer Fin Serck-Hanssen and authors Bjørn Hatterud and Caroline Ugelstad Elnæs had with Scandinavian groundbreaking queer personas born before 1970. Simultaneously, Queer Icons will be a book edited by Bente Riise, designed by Den Luca, and published by Teknisk Industri. At Fotogalleriet it will take the form of an exhibition, designed through a unique cooperation with the design collective HAiKw/ (Ida Falck Øien and Harald Lunde Helgesen). Queer Icons aims to create awareness of unwritten stories surrounding some of Norway’s (often unrecognized) queer pioneers. Fotogalleriet’s location on Møllergata further anchors the topics at hand: the street used to boast outlets for queer porn, sex shops, and several clubs the queer environment from the 60s until the 00s.
Featured trailblazers in Queer Icons include, among others, Gerd Brantenberg, Per Barclay, Maurice Budini, Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty, Christeene, Vaginal Davis, Turid Eikvam, Cårejånni Enderud, Reidar Engesbak, Liv Finstad, Rolf Flatmo and Morten Sortodden, Stein Fosslie, Kim Friele, Halvard Haldorsen, Arne Harald Hansen, Dag Johan Haugerud, Armand Henriksen, Sven Henriksen, David Hoyle, Lars Daniel Krutzkoff Jacobsen, Brita Cappelen Møystad, Mona Nesje, Ulf Nilseng, Kjell Nordström, Kristin Norderval, Nelly Nylon, Genesis P-Orridge, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, Catherine Opie, Tom Ovlien, Svein Skeid, Calvin Ray Stiggers, Siri Sunde, Gudmund Vindsun, and Øyvin Palm.
A wide-ranging public program accompanies the exhibition.
Brittany Nelson
Solo exhibition
Late summer
Fotogalleriet presents the first solo presentation of American-born, Trondheim-based Brittany Nelson. Working photographically with chemical techniques from the 19th century, Nelson looks into the unexpected, eventually unveiling the queer unconscious of technology. Avoiding the linearity of time presumed in these techno heroic machineries, she redefines them as cultural carrier bags of unfinished stories, and untold desires.
Victoria Verseau
Solo exhibition
Autumn
Victoria Verseau’s work traverses various media and surfaces, ranging from moving images to sculpture, installation, and performance. Her artistic practice focuses on examining the body in its social structures. Verseau strives to process existential and conformant issues and the more significant meanings her life demands, traversing spaces and identities.
Other projects
The Spring Exhibition, an artist-juried presentation held since 1974, and part of the Fotobokfestival Oslo (both of which are organized annually by FFF) will continued to be hosted by Fotogalleriet in 2022.
Baraza, a specially commissioned project curated by Renée Akitelek Mboya will present a series of virtual studio visits including among others Anna Tje, Hera Chan, Kaino Wennerstrand, and Dr. Uhuru Phalafala—creating a space to engage practitioners in the art field who, through their practice are critical of norms, raise queer perspectives and question ontologies, epistemologies and ethics.
For press enquiries, please write to Arash Shahali.
