Alt Går Bra

Contemporary art collective

Ongoing Exhibitions

Strandamalerne

KUNST I DE TUSEN HJEM: STRANDAMALERNE

Parallel exhibitions at Alt Går Bra Lokale (Bergen) and Lindåstunet (Lindås), Norway

Alt Går Bra presents parallel exhibitions on Strandamalerne popular paintings throughout the summer of 2023. As opposed to the sublime depictions of landscape by the National Romantics, Alt Går Bra reframes Norwegian topography inspired by self-taught and outsider artists from the Vestland region during the Post-war period.

Hundreds of women and men, then, brandished palettes and easels to produce their own images of the countryside. Among them, families of painters from Lindås, known as Strandamalerne, produced nearly half a million paintings over two decades, sold all over the country—a modest version of the self-taught peasants from the Croatian Hlebine School of Art. Unseen by both artworld and academia, the Strandamalerne shaped a collective imaginary of the Norwegian landscape, with their paintings embellishing nearly every Norwegian home well into the 1980s—in some cases up to today.

Alt Går Bra conceived artworks and environments to activate the dormant meanings of these paintings, including newly produced paintings, installations, and videos. The exhibitions are the result of a research and processes that Alt Går Bra has been carrying out on popular paintings from Vestland since 2019.

Kunst i de Tusen Hjem is inscribed within Alt Går Bra’s long-term archaeological projects, exploring forgotten or half-seen phenomena and liminal aesthetics—intersecting the popular and the erudite, canonic and marginal, arts and crafts. Some of these projects have focused on objects and themes including coats of arms, Norwegian fane or banners, the acanthus ornament, and mimeograph printing.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

ALT GÅR BRA LOKALE, Bergen
June 10th-August 27th, 2023
Opening: June 10th, 17:00-20:00
Address: Strandgaten 208, 5004 Bergen.

LINDÅSTUNET, Lindås
May 27th-August 27th, 2023
Opening: May 27th, 14:00-17:00
Address: Gamle Prestavegen 2, 5955 Lindås

Talk at Lindåstunet: June 6th, 18.00-19:00, Alt Går Bra in conversation with Øyvind Holsen and Øystein Valde, descendants of Strandamalere popular painters.

SUPPORT:

Alt Går Bra’s research on regional paintings is supported by Vestland Fylkeskommune and the Lindåstunet events by KORO Public Art Norway and Alver Municipality.

Popular Landscapes

Popular Paintings

Worldwide, Norway is known for its landscapes; less familiar is the Norwegian people’s relationship to nature. Rather than focusing on museal depictions of the landscape, Popular Landscapes looks at outsider art. During the Postwar period until the 1970s, a range of self-declared artists, predominantly from rural areas, gave a visual form to the nature that surrounded them. In their depictions, nature is home and inhabiting it is an act of balance: mountains, fjords, trees, little cabins, small fishing boats. These iconic canvases decorated nearly every Norwegian home. We disassemble these paintings, overlooked by art and academic institutions, to investigate how those inside the landscape and outside the artworld depicted nature as home.

ONGOING:

EXHIBITIONS:

SUPPORT:

Three-year research support from Vestland County. Additional funding from the Norwegian Arts Council and Bergen City Council. The project in Lindås is supported by Alver City Council, funded by KORO Public Art Norway.

Vessels

Vessels

Interweaving fiction with history, we revisit pottery produced by civilizations in the South American continent and the Greco-Roman worlds. We repurpose ancient vessels to pour fictional narratives of the past into a shape-shifting present, irrigating histories, geographies, and mythologies to envisage speculative futures. Vessels activates our background in ancient archaeology and, together with Brazilian-Norwegian curator Adriana Alves, our South American exilic situatedness.

EXHIBITIONS:

SUPPORT:

Project in collaboration with Nordnorsk Kunstnersenter.

Acanthus

Acanthus

In the Acanthus Project, we trace the diasporic movements of a plant, thought of as a weed. With an archaeological approach, we trace the acanthus germinating in ornaments and paintings—from Corinthian columns in Ancient Greece to Middle Eastern arabesques and Norwegian rosemaling—finding a planetarian expression in grotesques, where plants, animals, and humans intertwine and metamorphose into each other.

Instantiations of our Acanthus Project have taken the shape of exhibitions, city walks, talks, and an online database mapping acanthus ornaments on the facades of over 400 buildings in the city of Bergen. The Bergen City Archive Byarkiv has permanently archived our database with its over 3,000 photographs documenting the ornaments and their architectural settings.

EXHIBITIONS:

OTHER INSTANTIATIONS (SELECTED):

SUPPORT:

Project supported by the Norwegian Arts Council Heritage and Visual Arts programs, Vestland County, Bergen City Council, Production Stipendium from Bildende Kunstneres Hjelpefond (BKH), and the City of Bergen 400-year Anniversary Fund.

Den Norske Idealstaten

Den Norske Idealstaten

Alt Går Bra produced Den Norske Idealstaten through 2017-2022 across Norway. Thirty-one artworks resulting from this project are in the permanent collection of Nasjonalmuseet, the National Museum of Norway.

In conversation with communities, Den Norske Idealstaten produced collective reflections on our shared future. In collaboration with art centers and institutions, we engaged individuals and organizations at libraries, community centers, folkets hus, youth clubs, elderly cafes, unions, bars, factories, schools, gyms, universities, and so forth. Conversations took the shape of tête-à-tête exchanges, individual and group surveys, round table discussions, workshops, assemblies, and theatrical or performative actions.

Undoing the traditional principle of commissions, we produced material artwork rendering the ideas of the anonymous individuals and groups who participated in the conversations. We gave them form by deploying the communal formats and symbols of coats of arms and fane or banners.

We are currently working on the book, Den Norske Idealstaten, The Voice of a Collective, which recaptures some of the moments and processes of this project. .

EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED):

For further information and documentation, see Final Report.

INSTANTIATIONS (SELECTED):

For further information and documentation, see Final Report.

SUPPORT:

This project began with funding from KORO Public Art Norway. Funding was later granted by the Norwegian Arts Council Visual Arts and Performing Arts programs. The library tour was funded by the Fritt Ord Foundation. Events in Bergen were funded by the Bergen City Council Open Doors Program. Work in the Vestland Region was funded by Vestland County. Financial support for the events in Levanger was provided by LevArt/PARK/Levanger City Council and for the performances at Kunsthall 3.14 by BIT Teatergarasjen.

Mimeograph

Mimeograph

Ubiquitous throughout the 20th century, the mimeograph enabled countless poets, writers, and artists to print experimental works and publish radical literature—closely associated with political activism and clandestine publishing.

Since 2014, we have been reinventing mimeograph printing and publishing in the 21st century. We scrutinized mimeograph practices in our The Mimeograph, A Tool for Radical Art and Political Contestation, the first book devoted to this revolutionary printing technology. At an international conference we convened at the University of Westminster, we sketched out some of the core theoretical elements of mimeograph printing.

We use the mimeograph to make experimental prints and installations, and also run a mimeograph printing and publishing studio (see Writing and Publishing).

INSTANTIATIONS (SELECTED):

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS:

All publications handbound and printed on two-drum Gestetner mimeograph machines.

SUPPORT:

Project funded by Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund, OCA Office of Contemporary Art Norway, Fritt Ord Foundation, Norwegian Visual Artists Fund (BKV), the Norwegian Arts Council Visual Arts and Manuscript Development programs, the Bergen City Council Theory and Critique, Open Doors, and International programs.

Tout Va Bien

Tout Va Bien

Since the inception of our collective in 2015, we have been convening the series of talks Tout Va Bien with international guests in Bergen to discuss art and politics. From 2015 until 2018, we held the events at Bergen Kunsthall. We have also regularly organized study groups in connection with the series.

In 2018, we published the book Tout Va Bien with articles by our guests to mark the third anniversary of the series.

In 2023, we will be launching a new online edition of the series.

EVENTS (SELECTED):

SUPPORT:

Project funded by the Norwegian Arts Council Visual Art program, Fritt Ord Foundation, and Bergen City Council.

Writing and Publishing

Writing and Publishing

Much of our work fluctuates around our non-fictional writing in multiple formats, from thought maps to essays, and experimental pieces.

Our need to print and publish our own texts led us to discover mimeograph printing and to establish the Alt Går Bra publishing house, where we produce our own books and publications. We also write for journals, newspapers, and other outlets. Since 2021, we have been regular contributors to the Norwegian quarterly journal for the visual arts, Billedkunst, in our column Art & Society.

We have been exhibitors and speakers at book fairs, including Miss Read in Berlin, Salon de la revue in Paris, and Frankfurter Buchmesse

ARTICLES (SELECTED):

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS:

All publications handbound and printed on two-drum Gestetner mimeograph machines.

Alt Går Bra Lokale

Alt Går Bra Lokale

In September 2019, we moved into Alt Går Bra Lokale, which we officially opened in March 2020.

The space hosts our studio in Bergen, opening onto the street through large windows. At Alt Går Bra Lokale, we have a program of exhibitions, talks, and other events, including Kunst og Kaffe around waffles and coffee.

With the ambition of opening to the community, we conceived Alt Går Bra Lokale in conversation with urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg, known for having coined the concept of “third place.”

Alt Går Bra Lokale is located in the scenic and residential neighborhood of Nordnes, stretching over a small peninsula off central Bergen. This is a 100 sq.m. space with an exhibition room in the front and a flexible area upstairs.

SUPPORT:

We have been running Alt Går Bra Lokale with partial financial support from the Norwegian Arts Council, Vestland County, and Bergen City Council.

Reviews

Reviews

Our work has been written about primarily in Norwegian newspapers and art publications. An in-depth interview about our mimeograph practice has been published in Perspective, the French National Institute of Art History INHA—conducted by senior researcher Zanna Gilbert from the Getty Research Institute. The Norwegian Arts Council commissioned a sociological study about our dissemination practice engaging new and diverse audiences.

TEXTS ABOUT ALT GÅR BRA’S SOLO WORK (SELECTED):

About


Alt Går Bra was founded by Agnes Nedregård and Branko Boero Imwinkelried in 2015. Run by the duo, Alt Går Bra is conceived as an art collective, exploring ways of organizing and working with others while transgressing borders between artist-run and institutional, art production and dissemination, artistic practice and art theory.

With roots in the opposite poles of the earth, South America and Scandinavia, Alt Går Bra interweaves situated latitudes into long-term and process-based projects.

The collective is based in Bergen and Paris. You can find us at our gallery and studio space Alt Går Bra Lokale in Bergen at Strandgaten 208 in the neighborhood of Nordnes. You can also make an appointment to visit our atelier in the second arrondissement of Paris.

Alt Går Bra has presented its work at over 200 spaces, ranging from small venues and community spaces to large institutions, including the National Museum of Norway Nasjonalmuseet, KODE Bergen Art Museum, Bergen Kunsthall, the University of Westminster, Palais de Tokyo, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Alt Går Bra’s work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the National Museum of Norway Nasjonalmuseet, KODE Bergen Art Museum, KORO Public Art Norway, Trondheim Kommune, Tate Archives and Library, and John Flaxman Library School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 2022, Alt Går Bra was awarded the prize of Norwegian Visual Artist of the Year by Subjektprisen.

Alt Går Bra has received support from funding bodies including the Norwegian Arts Council (Norsk Kulturdirektorat), KORO Public Art Norway, OCA Office of Contemporary Art Norway, Vestland County, Bergen City Council, Fritt Ord, Barents Secretariat, Billedkunstnernes Hjelpefond, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Arts Council England, UK National Heritage Fund, and Pro Helvetia.

Online, you can learn more about our work by visiting our Acanthus Project portal akantus.no, watching our videos on Youtube and Vimeo, and reading our texts in Academia. You can get our updates and exchange with us on Instagram, Alt Går Bra Facebook, and Alt Går Bra Lokale Facebook.

E-mail: altgarbra (at) gmail (dot) com

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