Exhibition | Production + Perversion in Steinar Haga Kristensen’s Brown Period

BREST, France—Norwegian artist Steinar Haga Kristensen‘s latest exhibition La Période Brune just wrapped up at Centre d’art Contemporain Passerelle (June 2 – September 2, 2017). Haga Kristensen’s Brown Period, much like Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period following a time of struggle and loss, was brought on, by what the artist calls, a very “brown time,” marked by the political, moral and identity struggles in today’s world. Haga Kristensen’s browness began in emerge as early as 2008 in her exhibition Brunt og Vanskelig (Brown and Difficult).

Writer Eirik Senje says Haga Kristensen’s work revolved around a sudden realization that art can only exist in relation to the reality of society.

What becomes apparent with the Période Brune, is the result of Haga Kristensen’s many years of intellectual and physical exertion, leading up to the simple, but profound realization that art can be made and enter history only as and for society—one without the other being inherently absurd. Any act of creation must as such always be either an affirmation or denial of collective responsibility and citizenship. From this comes the understand that struggling through the mud and shit with all the others in the end is the only wellspring of meaningful inspiration and ideals.

The exhibition itself is multimedia intersection of ceramics, tapestry, alfresco, oil paint and casts, plaster sculpting, woodwork and a video installation. Contemporary Art Daily writes the exhibition is characterized by Haga Kristensen’s satirical subversion of the modern art object. The linear presentation of the works even imbue a sense of sterility and industrialization.

Through visual and conceptual perversion of individualism, liberalism, rationalism and secularism the work discloses the extensive complications of positive production of future in today’s social and economic situation.

Read more of Eirik Senje’s essay here.

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