In Anytime Now were the focus of tension and global instability. The exhibition tapped into the ubiquitous feeling that people in today's world have less and less solid ground under their feet due to war, terrorist threats, climate change, polarization and the loss of social security. At the same time, the exhibition questioned the perception that the end times are approaching.
With impressive images, the artists evoked a sense of immediate threat, but also that of a sense of time that is almost unimaginable and profound to humans. Through the continuous presence of performers at the heart of the exhibition, the question of the role of man in this field of tension became inescapable.
The theatrical installation 'Domain of Things' van Pedro Gomez-Egaña formed the centrepiece of the exhibition. On a steel construction, almost two metres above the ground, was a dimly lit living room without walls. Half-empty cups, an open laptop and other details suggested that someone had been here not long ago. When the wooden floorboards of the house slid in and out like tectonic plates, it became clear that people had been present all this time. Like a machine, live performers set the construction in motion, silently and almost in slow motion. Their presence set the imagination in motion: Why did these people go underground? Were they looking for shelter from the instability of the world above, or are they part of the mechanism that causes that instability?
For years has been producing Olphaert den Otter an unceasing stream of images of disasters and natural disasters. His 'World Stress Paintings' show hurricanes, floods, explosions, crashed planes and destroyed houses. Although all the images are based on news photos, they differ from the news in one important respect: people are missing, and with them any reference to a specific drama. The more his stream of images grows, the clearer it becomes that Den Otter is not interested in sensational incidents, but in a total picture of a world in a permanent state of chaos. Den Otter also presented a new monumental painting in which ruined cityscapes, from classical antiquity to Homs in Syria, merge into a maelstrom of destruction.
Mobilizes against the constant sense of threat and insecurity Anton Vrede an ongoing series of images of symbolic animal figures. In various legends they are known as 'tricksters': archetypal figures who manage to overcome the challenges and dangers of the world in their own unique way. In many cultures, the trickster appears as a hero of the marginalized and oppressed, where they functioned as a symbolic code to be able to share stories about the tricking or undermining of power in a context where open resistance was impossible. For those who know how to read the code, Vrede's seemingly innocent drawings of the hare, the monkey and other animals form a subtle gesture of defense. For years, Vrede sent a trickster drawing into the world every morning via social media, as a daily dose of antidote to the growing social tensions. In TENT he presented a wall of drawings.
Thomson & Craighead presented two works around a deeply human and for humans unimaginable idea of time. Their installation 'A Temporary Index' functions as a huge clock that counts down in real time to the moment when places where radioactive waste is stored will be habitable for people again. This often takes millions of years, a time span that seems inconceivable from our human sense of time, which makes us feel no responsibility for it. Thomson & Craighead make this incomprehensible time span visible with self-designed numerical symbols; signs that may only be understood in the future. In addition, they presented a work that is based on a pre-eminently human conception of time: the Apocalypse. This biblical story predicts the end of time in blood-curdling terms. Thomson & Craighead took the intensely sensory descriptions of blood, bile and burnt flesh as a recipe for a perfume with a metallic scent of cumin, aldehyde and roses.
With thanks to Office for Contemporary Art Norway.