Marius Engh
The Sign of Four
Oslo Kunstforening is pleased to welcome you to our next exhibition opening on Thursday August 21 from 18–20. The autumn season opens with The Sign of Four, a solo exhibition by Marius Engh.
Marius Engh (b. 1974) is considered one of Norway’s leading contemporary artists. With a practice spanning over two decades, he has distinguished himself with works that investigate connections between history, archaeology, philosophy, and the cultural landscape of our time. Engh works across a wide range of media – from sculpture and installation to photography, text, printmaking, and publications. Through a conceptually and visually precise formal language, he holds up a mirror to the present in which the past is reflected, casting shadows and inviting a curious engagement from the viewer. Drawing on thorough research and fieldwork, he activates historical materials and symbols, allowing them to emerge in new contexts.
In the exhibition The Sign of Four, realised following a research residency in Athens, Engh examines the relationship between sculpture and landscape, with particular focus on the pedestal and the portrait bust’s origin in the so-called herm sculpture. A herm is an abstract sculptural form based on the god Hermes from ancient Greece. Hermes' role as protector of travelers and commerce was first materialized as a cairn, and later as a rectangular pillar topped with a portrait bust.
Originally, a herm functioned both as an altar and as a marker in the landscape – a bridge between the private and the public – in the form of boundary stones, milestones, and markers of crossroads, marketplaces, and sacred sites. From representing Hermes as a guide, the herm also evolved to honor individuals associated with his qualities through portraiture – a tradition that can be seen as an extension of the herm sculpture.
The title The Sign of Four refers to the herm's square shape and its function as a guidepost at a crossroads, pointing in four directions. Hermes was also born in the fourth month of the year and was celebrated on the fourth day of each month. In the trade and merchant marks of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the number four was often incorporated into signatures as a symbol of good fortune.
The exhibition explores the connections between ancient deity worship and the monumental, as well as the relationship between abstract sculpture and the pedestal’s role as both bearer and symbol. Engh draws lines between past conceptions of boundaries and movement, symbolism and value systems – from the oracle’s prophecies to the equilibrium of the universe – examining how these ideas both mirror and challenge our contemporary moment.
Bio
Marius Engh (b. 1974, Oslo) lives and works in Oslo. He was educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Engh has presented his work extensively in Norway and abroad, with recent solo exhibitions at, among others, Centralbanken, Oslo (2024), Borgenheim Rosenhof, Oslo (2023), VEDA, Florence (2022), VanEtten, Oslo (2022), Hulias, Oslo (2021), and Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (2020). His work is included in numerous public collections, such as the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design; Oslo Municipality’s Art Collection; Kode; Stavanger Art Museum; and KORO (Public Art Norway). He has also completed several major public art commissions, including Hermopolis at the Norwegian Directorate of Customs in Oslo (KORO, 2019). Engh is represented by STANDARD (OSLO), Layr (Vienna), VEDA (Florence), and Luis Adelantado (Valencia). He runs the independent publishing house and exhibition space Hermetiske Skygger, and in September he will take part in the group exhibition War is Peace? at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo and Curated by at Layr in Vienna.
The exhibition is supported by Kulturrådet, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and Ingrid Lindbäck Langaard stiftelse.