Rogaland Kunstsenter opens the autumn with the exhibition “Lysende Framtidsutsikter” (Bright Prospects) by this year's Stavanger Artist, Anna Ihle. The exhibition is accompanied by the launch of Ihle's publication, which offers a glimpse into what Ihle is working on. Because artists, they work. Perhaps not like ordinary mortals, but they work. And work is precisely what Ihle focuses on in her artistic practice. What she works on, if you will.
Ihle's art projects revolve around the question of what work is. Ihle also reflects on her own contemporary moment and the role of art within it. In Norway we have good working conditions. We work 7.5 hours a day, five days a week; we have pension schemes and wage negotiations. We have strong trade unions. And yet artists sit at the bottom of the pay scale, earning less from their artistic practice with each passing year. An artist is still not regarded as particularly useful, and is seen as feeding straight from the public purse. The artists' own unions have worked tirelessly to build an understanding of what artistic work is and what benefit society gains from art.
Ihle's works exist within this field of tension. Many of her projects develop over time and involve people beyond the artist herself, something that is reflected both in the exhibition and in the book. The book introduces a selection of projects that examine Ihle's methods, where she often uses conversation as a way of gathering new information while simultaneously acquiring new skills herself – whether that be woodcarving or laundering clothes. The book also includes texts that reflect on different forms of work, whether from a feminist and historical perspective, as in Kathi Weeks' text, or from Roland Paulsen's text on the potential boredom of work. Merete Jonvik also contributes a text exploring art's role in shaping the working conditions of the future.
For Ihle's exhibition at Rogaland Kunstsenter we present a new version of the work «Lysende Framtidsutsikter» from 2016. The work grew out of Ihle's return to her oil-city home of Stavanger that same year. In 2014, the oil price fell from around $115 to $30 a barrel and the city had taken yet another hit. These cyclical shocks are tied to Stavanger's status as a mono-city, a place where one industry dominates, be it fishing, shipping, canning or oil. Stavanger was hit hard by the collapse in oil prices. Several thousand lost their jobs, companies went bankrupt, and the whole city wondered whether this was the end of Stavanger as we knew it. During the crisis there was much debate over what could be the new oil. Tourism? Culture? Innovation?
It was the conversation around innovation that led Ihle to a self-initiated artist residency at Innovation Dock in 2016. Innovation Dock is a co-working space in Stavanger East, where «people meet and ideas emerge.» It was a working environment Ihle was curious about, where entrepreneurship, innovation, start-ups and founders held the spotlight. What kind of role does an artist play here? What is innovation? And how do you make money from it?
Ihle's project on bright prospects actually looked back in time. What is the new oil? Well, perhaps the ancient fever of striking gold! Ihle recruited four other cultural workers from Stavanger and together they set out on an expedition to Nordland to pan for gold. The project is documented as video clips from a reality show on NRK. The work is a good example of how Ihle operates. Over a relatively short span of time, the artist picks up a whole range of skills. What does it take to pan for gold? And over a relatively short career, Ihle has acquired a range of skills. She has done laundry, written newspaper columns, woven, carved stone and wood, and now panned for gold. The aim is not to find the perfect job, but to call the very concept of work into question. Something that only becomes more important in a changing world, in the hunt for the new oil.