Open today 12 — 16
Free entry

Sparebankstiftelsen DNBs stipendutstilling 2022

18.11.22 — 29.01.22
Kim Hankyul, AV Buddha, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Kim Hankyul, AV Buddha, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Oslo Kunstforening is pleased to welcome you to Sparebankstiftelsen DNB's Grant Exhibition 2022. This year's exhibitors are Oslo-based artists Kim Hankyul, Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo, and Lesia Vasylchenko.

Oslo Kunstforening is happy to present Kim Hankyul as the recepient of Sparebankstiftelsen DNB's grant 2022 for his kinetic sound installation AV Buddha (2022).

Jury statement: "An extraordinary technical achievement, the work is equally complex conceptually, sonically, and aesthetically. At once moving and disquieting, it transforms neglected stories of the Korean war into an uncanny mechanical and musical symphony, reflecting at the same time on the cacophony of contemporary acceleration online media culture. While dealing with the unresolved history of Korea, AV Buddha also points to the mediated character of modern conflicts more widely. It is a deeply affecting anti-monument to those lives which continue to be marginalized in collective memory."

The grant exhibition is being held at Oslo Kunstforening for the fifteenth time, an event that has become an important institution in Norway’s art scene over the years. To date,18 artists have received grants and 69 artists have participated in the exhibition. A jury of art professionals is responsible for both the nominations and the final judging, and the grant recipient is announced at the opening. 

Oslo Kunstforening is proud of the collaboration with Sparebankstiftelsen DNB on this annual exhibition, which is much more than a competition for a grant. The grant exhibition has developed into an important platform for introducing exciting artistic practices, both established and emerging, to a wider public. 

On November 26th at 2 PM there will be a conversation between the artists and jury member Mike Sperlinger, curator and professor of writing practice at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

The nominated artists

The nominees in this year's exhibition are Kim Hankyul (b. 1990, South Korea), Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo (b. 1994, Taiwan), and Lesia Vasylchenko (b. 1990, Ukraine). Despite different approaches, they have in common that they present powerful analyses of the contemporary world. Their work addresses a wide range of themes – from familial relationships and religious rituals in Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo's installation All the Time, via media handling and grief processes in light of the Korean War in Kim Hankyul's kinetic sculpture AV Buddha, to connections between nuclear technology and climate in Lesia Vasylchencko's No One Will Stop the Wind – through sculpture, photography, and video.

The jury

The jury for the period 2018-2022 consists of jury leader Behzad Farazollahi, visual artist and founder of MELK; Randi Grov Berger, curator and head of Entrée; Marianne Hultman, director of Nordnorsk kunstnersenter and former leader of Oslo Kunstforening; Mike Sperlinger, writer, curator, and professor in writing practice at Oslo National Academy of the Arts and Elise Storsveen, visual artist. Elisabeth Byre is the new leader of Oslo Kunstforening and replaced Hultman as a jury member in August 2022.

The grant

The annual grant exhibition has been organized by Oslo Kunstforening since 2008 with support from Sparebankstiftelsen DNB. Previous grant recipients are Anne Haugsgjerd (2021), Berivan Erdogan, Hanni Kamaly and Kjetil Skøien (2020), Germain Ngoma (2019), Eirik Sæther (2018), Emilija Škarnulytė (2017), Tor Børresen (2016), Andrea Bakketun and Christian Tony Norum (2015), Ingrid Lønningdal (2014), Sandra Mujinga (2013), Marie Buskov (2012), Kaia Hugin (2011), Ann Cathrin November Høibo (2010), Ignas Krunglevičius (2009) and Ellisif Hals and Susanne Skeide (2008).

Kim Hankyul

Kim Hankyul's work AV Buddha (2022), is an extensive kinetic sound installation in the form of a Buddha figure. Archive material on the horrors of the Korean War is presented on small mobile screens that make up the Buddha's face. The contrast between the spiritual and the mechanical is central: in the black-and-white films, we are confronted with marginalized groups that history has overlooked, while the Buddha figure is brought to life in a mechanical symphony, only to then fall silent. Hankyul links the work to the contemporary mediation of disasters and mass death, where the short time horizon in social media leaves no room for slow and more time-consuming processes such as grief. The title AV Buddha refers to the iconic work TV Buddha (1974) by the South Korean artist Nam June Paik, which, among other things, thematizes the relationship between East and West, religion and media society, surveillance and control.

Kim Hankyul. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Kim Hankyul. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Bio

Kim Hankyul (b. 1990, South Korea) currently lives and works in Oslo. Working with kinetic sound installation as the most primary expression, Hankyul delves into the themes including natural catastrophe and physical anomalies by creating atmospheric soundscapes out of the mechanic motions. Through the intentional discordance between sonic outcome and visual elements, Hankyul creates a critical distance from ordinary lexicon and its inherent logic of functionalities. Hankyul holds a BA in Aesthetics from Seoul National University and MFA in Fine Art from The Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD).   

Hankyul has been shown among others at Gyldenpris Kunsthall, KRAFT Bergen, Høstutstillingen 2021 and Kistefos-prize was awarded for the work ‘Tempest’ presented in Høstutstillingen.

Kim Hankyul, AV Buddha, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Kim Hankyul, AV Buddha, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo shows the installation All the Time (2022), where the relationship between the private and the family is juxtaposed with religious rituals and everyday objects. The installation shows five structures that resemble box mattresses leaning against the wall while also reminding of cabinets, which refers to modular Buddhist and Taoist altars common in modern homes in Taiwan - the artist's homeland. Resting on shelves in the structures are various objects linked to a family's religious rituals, among which contact with the ancestors is central. The cupboards, five in all, one for each family member, can be seen as interfaces between two worlds: one here and now, and one hereafter.

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Bio

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo (b. 1994, Taiwan) currently lives and works in Oslo. At the root of his practice is memory, the vehicle with which he correlates between body, family, pictorial experience, object, and space. He draws upon these memories, creating perpetually designated narrative which becomes identities in progress: the transformation of individual personhood in relation to collective rather than established entities. His artistic practice melds elements into site-specific installation - sound, liquid, text, recording, publishing - employing the (im)material to convey an intimate touch to the storytelling of his installations, conferring a subtle access to the harder inquiry of the scenarios: domestic entanglement, identity insecurity, and the uncanniness of intimacy.  

Kuo has been shown among others at Oslo Negativ, Oslo; Aki Gallery, Taipei; Loftet (Kunstnernes Hus), Oslo; Tenthaus, Oslo; Podium, Oslo; Northing Space, Bergen.

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo, All the Time, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo, All the Time, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Lesia Vasylchenko

Lesia Vasylchenko presents the work No One Will Stop the Wind (2022), an installation with sculptures, photographs, and video that explores how nuclear technology affects the planet. Two sculptures are made of clay and trinitite, a glass formed by the heat from the world's first nuclear test, in New Mexico in 1945. The material is both a kind of historical witness and an object that will last for many thousands of years to come. Three large photographs, with massive frames of clay, are entitled A-images. The A refers to atomic shadows from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, and the images show black fields with faint renderings of shadows. These are frightening indications of how the last images of Earth may one day turn out. The video shows images from a surveillance camera of the Russian attack on Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, on March 3rd, 2022, an attack whose full consequences remain unknown.

Lesia Vasylchenko. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Lesia Vasylchenko. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Bio

Lesia Vasylchenko (b. 1990, Ukraine) lives and works in Oslo. Vasylchenko works across a range of media including video, photography, installation, and sculpture. She is a co-curator of the artist-run gallery space PODIUM and a founder of STRUKTURA, a cross-disciplinary initiative for research and practice within the framework of visual arts, media archaeology, literature, and philosophy. She holds a degree in journalism from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and an MFA from The Academy of Fine Art in Oslo. 

Vasylchenko’s works have been exhibited at Louvre Museum, Paris; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Haugar Art Museum, Tønsberg; The Wrong New Digital Art Biennale, Høstutstillingen 2022, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. Vasylchenko is currently one of the artists in the Munch Triennale 2022 at the Munch Museum, Oslo.

Lesia Vasylchenko,  No One Will Stop The Wind, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

Lesia Vasylchenko,  No One Will Stop The Wind, 2022. Photo: Julie Hrnčířová

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