The Jury’s Choice by Åsmund Thorkildsen, Jury member
Painting, has always been taken as a given. Such is still the case. Displaying admirable perseverance following a period of first having been sanctified by finally finding itself, painting was then declared transgressed and superfluous. The latter holds true to a certain extent: the principal problems of figure against ground, illusory depth against physical surface and the notion of pictorial space are not dependent on paint, brush and stretched canvas. These relationships may be expressed using other means, as demonstrated by artists such as Mel Bochner and Robert Morris at the end of the1960s. Painting does not rest on solid ground, neither is it confined by absolute borders. In succumbing to the temptation of considering painting and art history as a progressive development one may believe that while painting was good enough for earlier times, it today serves only as a means and an introduction to a more advanced understanding of art.
However, artistic practice shows that painting today is still a goal in itself. Its strength and central position build on an overwhelming tradition. Painting has become a mature art form, which is practiced and experienced without regard for what may succeed or replace it. Painting has managed to remain a tradition into which the unstable is incorporated and where breaks are integrated into its history. However, in saying that painting may be a goal in itself, this does not mean that it is concerned solely with itself. That mistake in painting's history is not likely to be repeated.
Paintings are read horizontally. They are viewed the same way that they are made. Paintings are visual fields without breaks. They are experienced as surfaces, and they are seen in the world as special objects that also present the world. They are both within and about the visible world. This necessary duality has saved painting from its own pitfalls. Painting is able to be a goal in itself without disengaging from the rest of the world. Thus the experience of a painting is a complicated matter, one which is not learned once and for all, or with which we can ever see ourselves being finished.
We would not have paintings if one did not see differences between them and what they depict. An interest in painting as art is dependent on this difference. One must see two things simultaneously. Paintings are pleasure for the eyes, explanations of space, deceivers of expectations, challengers of vision, elements of surprise and visual storytellers. A painting has no metaphysical guarantee, but has solid, pragmatic advantages that protect against attacks from both without and within. For experience shows that it takes living to orient oneself in the perceptible world, and it requires a life to live with paintings. In addition to the formidable treasure of paintings in museums and collections, painting evidences an ability for continual renewal. Not radical, conceptual breaks all the time, bur individual surprises. The need for renewal is greatest where tradition is strongest. Today's Nordic painters show that this renewal is possible, as evidenced by the many examples we in the Carnegie Art Award jury have seen in our work with the selection of works for this year's exhibition.
We will lose neither interest nor pleasure in painting, for that would mean a loss of the interest and pleasure we take in the world as well. Some people are interested only in the world - in how it appears and how it affects us. Others are also interested in why we are interested – in out different ways of beholding and holding onto the world. Some of these become artists; we others comprise painting's loyal public. Out role is to show the pleasure and sense of recognition we derive from painting as painting's audience grows ever larger.
The Exhibition by Ulrika Levén, Curator
After the inaugural year of the Carnegie Art Award we were looking forward with excitement to what the Carnegie Art Award 1999 would bring. Many who saw the exhibition wondered whether it would be possible to continue mounting shows that maintained the same high quality. Today, we can see the proof that, with the rich ground of good artists provided by the Nordic countries, there was no problem this rear - and neither is there likely to be in the years to come.
This year too, the exhibition incorporates a fantastic variety of modes of expression. We are seeing several examples of artists whose approach is expressive, and abounds with –references from their immediate surroundings and mass-media culture, while others have a more formal and theoretical, or almost scientific approach to painting. Nature is, of course, present again this year - fragmentary, aglow, magical or more abstract. While some of the artists in various ways involve photography and seeing in their works, others work with abstract, poetic painting in which the associations can be with bodily forms or cultural strata. Several of the works are introspective in character and take in both subjective reflections on family relations and visible manifestations of more spatial experiences.
In this year's exhibition there are also examples of how the boundaries of painting can be stretched and widened, at the same time as its essence is preserved. Adopting a conceptual approach, through these works the artists comment on painting on a meta-level. In one case the original paintings only remain in the art world as photographic documentation, in others the work is displayed three-dimensionally in a way that brings in and borders on other artistic principles such as sculpture, architecture or performance.
It is gratifying to be able to say that, now that the discussion about painting's future existence or non-existence has petered out, we can instead focus more on what the artist wants to impart than on which medium of expression has been used. Today, claiming that painting is a reactionary art form seems itself both reactionary and irrelevant. One thing that never petered out is artists' interest in making use of and developing painting, something that is expressed by the richness of this exhibition.
We are happy to be able to present in this year's Carnegie Art Award exhibition twenty- seven prominent artists who are active in the Nordic countries, and we wish both visitors and readers great enjoyment.