Stian Hansen (NO)

Moments for Nothing

Bronse nails, in a pile on a chipboard.

Moments for Nothing is Stian Hansen's first solo exhibition. The exhibition consists of a series of new paintings and bronze sculptures, in addition to a site-specific floor work.

Neither or a.k.a. both and

The sketches, the sketched, the draft, are always weaker than the fully introduced, completed gadget; the loop script, the varnished. But the ongoing work is of course where the real potential lies. Walter Benjamin pointed with great precision to reproductions that devalued variants of the 'original', the work's consummation, the completed. If we turn this valuation back to front, we can take a look at the path to the original, or the actual work behind it, the process. Instead of talking about the decay of the aura through reproduction, one can talk about the charging/saturation/filling of the aura through work and practice

Among several modernists with a penchant for the anti-authoritarian, we find Samuel Beckett. Stian has taken the title of his exhibition from Beckett (Endgame. 1957). Beckett writes rhythmically, repetitively. He is linguistically precise, economical, but oh so poetic. He who always finds himself in epistemological treading water. Who always waits, who always repeats. He who counts pebbles in his pockets, and who is as much defined by what he lacks as by what he has: Often reduced to his body, head and tongue in the mud. That is why it is always a practice at Beckett. The text is in practice. This procedural always trumps the conceptual. There is thus no illusion of a redemption, only the eternal work. And here, in the procedural there is also always the potential. It is to preserve potency - to stay in the unresolved - in the span between the intended and the completed.

[...] from impenetrable self, to impenetrable unself, by way of neither [...] (Neither. 1976)

This is just as much a communication strategy as it is cognitive theoretical work. Stian's motive and tools; nail, tape, grisaille, carries the promise of something. But it does not point towards the finished (because it does not exist), but towards what is already there. For what is aura? Yes, presence in time and space. Context. It is as performative as it is productive. It's like an aura generating dynamo.

We arrange and fix and facilitate. Stock workstations, storage space. Filing, sorting the rubbish. We write and exhibit. We repeat and vary. Then we welcome and say goodbye. Moments for nothing. Or was it everything.

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Stian Hansen (NO) is an artist trained at the Art Academy in Oslo and the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and, in addition to his artistic work, is curator and producer for the exhibition space Stormen kunst/dájdda in Bodø.

stianhansen.no

Exhibition opening: 
Saturday February 25th, 1pm

Opening party:
Saturday February 25th, 7pm

Opening hours: 
Thur - Sun
12 - 4pm

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NOUA  Exhibition Space, 2. floor
​Storgata 56, Bodø