Vigeland Museum
6 June - 20 October 2002
The lowest heaven, or like holding back the sea with a broom
In the meeting with Vigeland's stodgy idiom, an idiom which also arose from the time the sculptures were in, the elements of Jørgen Haugen Sørensen's work clearly: It offers a humorous look combined with a burlesque and playful approach to what art is. The exhibition is designed as a meeting where Haugen Sørensen's sculptures both appear as independent works and comments on Vigeland's art. Both artists have worked with relief as an expression. How Vigeland depicting Hell, call Haugen Sørsensen his "The lower sky" - where we live humans find ourselves, as a first step towards possible heavens. In relief are the characters at once material and shape. The figures are on the way out of the fabric that created them - clay or bronze - and they are simultaneously being absorbed by it or return to the formless. In the meeting with Vigeland's art, it becomes clear that Haugen Sørensen's works represent a critical absurd and engaging look at the man, a look that is also worn by an almost tragi respect for all the many strategies people have chosen to come to terms with their existence .
The exhibition was made a catalog of Norwegian and English with texts by curator Toril Smit and art historian Per Hovdenakk, who was also curator of the exhibition. In the catalog is the poem "A standing agreement" by Thomas Boberg.
