Ingenting bra skjer plutselig

Over four decades, Ole John Aandal (b. 1960) has explored the changing role of photography – from analog documentation to digital mass communication – and how this has influenced society’s self-perception This exhibition is the most extensive presentation of Aandal’s work to date. The exhibited works range from photographs taken in Palestine for Klassekampen in the late 1980s, through photographs that were digitally manipulated in the 1990s, to a new installation based on images of Oslo's transformation after the terrorist attack on 22 July 2011.

Ole John Aandal studied at the Institute of Photography at the National College of Art and Design in Bergen from 1991 to 1995. During this period, he was a part of a movement later referred to as the Bergen School alongside artists such as Vibeke Tandberg and Mikkel McAlinden. Over the years, he has explored multiple formats and taken on various roles both inside and outside the art field, with photography as his focal point – as a practicing artist, educator, and director of Fotogalleriet, as well as a press photographer, and documentary photographer for theater and music.

The extensive work Oslo arkiv 2011–2021 (2024) consists of several hundred photographs of the same view of Oslo city center, all taken from Aandal’s balcony at Carl Berner over a ten-year period. The first image is from the dramatic day of the 22 July 2011 bombing, showing the smoke rising above the government quarter. What follows are hundreds of images documenting subtle changes in the cityscape: the passing seasons, growing trees, shifting facades, sunsets, and windows lighting up and dimming. It is a narrative of life passing by and a city transforming, with the catastrophe and act of terror as an ever-present backdrop.

The work’s blend of poetry, documentation, and underlying politics is characteristic of Aandal’s approach. Aandal often spends years on a project, with long intervals between exhibitions. Perhaps this explains why his artistic practice has, until now, remained somewhat secret or hidden. The title Ingenting bra skjer plutselig [Nothing good happens suddenly] captures Aandal’s ambiguous relationship with time – the tension between the momentary and the slow, the contemporary and the historical. Although his works often originate from current events, they develop through a slow and meticulous process. Despite his engagement with contemporary issues over a 40 year period, his practice is remarkably timeless.

Camera Rosten (2017) depicts the river before and after the damming of Rosten, one of the largest gorges in Gudbrandsdalslågen. Using the camera obscura technique – created with a coffee can, water from the river, and development in an improvised darkroom by the river – in a barrack where Aandal lived for a month, the works came into being. Aandal creates connections between analog photography and the 10.000-year-old river in a kind of shared fate, where both belong to the past. The result is 16 photographs, 13 of which are displayed in the exhibition.

In Kvitedagene / Blankt alfabet (1990) a connection is seen between Aandal’s interest in nature, analog photography, and self-representation, themes he has explored in several projects. Here, the camera captures vast landscapes, animals, and the subtle nuances of snowy terrain, linked to the idea of humans encountering nature.

Juvenilia (2009) is a photo series and a photobook consisting of 44 photographs, 11 of which are displayed in the exhibition. Aandal downloaded these images from various online forums where young people in the early 2000s posted pictures of themselves and their surroundings. The grainy, low-resolution images represent a visual culture that has since been replaced by more conscious and professionalized forms of self-representation on social media.

Ole John Aandal also has a background as a press photographer for various newspapers, organizations, and press agencies. Palestina 1989 (2013/2025) was commissioned by Klassekampen, where Aandal was tasked with documenting conditions in hospitals in Gaza and the West Bank. The images depict both everyday life and the oppressive consequences of Israel’s occupation during the First Intifada in a direct yet poetic manner. Seen from today’s perspective, these images are tragically relevant.

Aandal belongs to a generation of artists who were among the first to use the digital editing tool Photoshop. In Gamle helter (1992), he inserts his own self-portrait into iconic images from our shared cultural heritage, representing various historical events captured in just one image. The series reflects on photographic history and comments on an era that, by the early 1990s, had passed. It was no longer possible to unite around a single image or narrative in an increasingly fragmented digital media landscape.

The photographs in Samaritanen (1994) approriate the main stories in tabloids from February 1994, which Aandal has manipulated by inserting images of himself alongside the individuals who dominated the news at the time. Aandal assumes the role of a caregiver, offering protection to those who, for various reasons, found themselves in the media spotlight. This series, perhaps Aandal’s most well-known, explores digital appropriation and manipulation using early Photoshop techniques. Today, this is a familiar aspect of media culture, but when these works were created in the early 1990s, they represented something entirely new and challenging in media contexts.

In connection with the exhibition, a monograph is being published by Multipress, presenting over a hundred works from Aandal’s career. Through interviews, in-depth analyses, and a broad art and photographic historical contextualization, new perspectives on Aandal’s art are explored. The book includes texts by Nicholas Norton, Liv Brissach, Nora Joung, Susanne Østby Sæther, and Eirik Zeiner-Henriksen. Editors are Nicholas Norton and Elisabeth Byre, and the book is designed by Blank Blank.

Oslo Kunstforening invites you to a book launch and discussion on 19 March, where the monograph, as well as contemporary Norwegian photographic history will be discussed, with participation from Ole John Aandal, Nicholas Norton, Elisabeth Byre, Susanne Østby Sæther, Mikkel McAlinden, and Vibeke Tandberg. On 26 April, a conversation about Oslo arkiv 2011–2021 will be held with Ole John Aandal and Nicholas Norton.

The exhibition and publication are supported by Kulturrådet, Fritt Ord, Bildende Kunstneres Hjelpefond, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and Norsk Fotografisk Fond.