THE DITCH AND THE KNIFE

PER INGE BJØRLO in dialogue with ASGER JORN

REKREASJON
DIKEMARK
JUNE 1 - OCTOBER 13, 2024

THE DITCH AND THE KNIFE
Per Inge Bjørlo in dialogue with Asger Jorn
*Administration building
Part of REKREASJON 2024

The soul in art and the silenced eyewitness.

Source measured against theory/decoding from the truth about who we are.

4 paintings by Asker Jorn - the sense of his journey in life - common references.

Jutland/Northwest Denmark - the landscape/sea - the breakaway from the eternal anchorage -

as a contribution to the doubt/confusion/chaos of finding one's way in life/art.

Dikemark/psychiatry/identity.

Empty spaces with strong traces of emotions from people's lives and sounds -

the anonymous traces of the seriousness of being human

Per Inge Bjørlo

As part of REKREASJON hair Trafo Kunsthall invited Per Inge Bjørlo to show works that are in dialogue with four paintings by Asger Jorn, in the Administration Building at the former psychiatric hospital in Dikemark. Bjørlo and Jorn share the physical experience of having spent a long period in an institution. The exhibition THE DITCH AND THE KNIFE reactivates the abandoned hospital rooms in the Administration Building with works characterized by a raw and uncompromising idiom.

See photos from the season opening on June 1st here .

The exhibition runs until October 13th.
Opening hours: Saturday and Sunday 12 - 16.

Photo in banner: Per Inge Bjørlo
The Dike / Psychedykket (The Sound of the Grave and Burnt Eyewitnesses) (2024)
Silicone, leaded glass, foiled veneer, spray paint, aluminum, stainless steel, LED light chain
Approx. 150×150×300 cm
Photo: Markus Li Stensrud

Below: Asger Jorn
Red Fantasy (1945)
Oil on canvas
55x80 cm.
Loan from Asker Municipality's art collection
Photo: Tor S. Ulstein

Installation photo The Trench and the Knife
Photo: Tor S. Ulstein

Per Inge Bjørlo (b. 1952) holds a special position in Norwegian contemporary art as one of the most important artists of our time. Bjørlo works mainly with sculpture, painting and graphics and is considered a pioneer of installation art in Norway. His works often take their starting point from existential fantasies with the human interior as the pivot point. With a distinctive visual language, the viewer is drawn into disturbing, profound and sensitive situations. In the exhibition, he has filled the empty rooms in the hospital building from 1908, with charcoal drawings and sculptures, several of which were made especially for the exhibition.

The paintings by Asger Jorn are on loan from the Asker municipality's art collection. The works are part of the art gift that business economist Peter Lorange presented to the municipality earlier this year. Asger Jorn (1914-1973) is considered one of the most significant Danish artists of the post-war period. As a painter, sculptor and writer, he has left a lasting mark on the international art scene. He was one of the founders of the artist group COBRA, which experimented with abstract art and primitivist aesthetics. Strongly influenced by surrealism, he often explored the irrational and instinctive. Like art in the 'genre' of outsider art, Jorn's work is characterized by its spontaneous and unprocessed nature.