Anne Katrine Senstad, Venice 2013
The practice of Norwegian artist Anne Katrine Senstad lies at the intersections of light sculpture, installation art, photography, video art, and site-specificity within the language of chromatic minimalism, the experiential condition and perceptual environments. With training in color theory, optics, and the psychology of space, for over several decades Senstad’s practice has focused on the phenomenology of perception of space, light, sound, and color.
– From Anne Senstad’s Artist Bio
Senstad was raised in Singapore and Norway, today she lives and works between New York and Oslo, Norway. She received her art education at Parsons School of Design and The New School for Social Research (BFA) in New York 1994 and 1999 (Film Studies), and Berkeley University, CA in 1989 (Video Studies).
ETERNAL, 2010. Public Art Commission, Wolfe Center for the Arts, BGSU, Ohio, Designed by Snøhetta Architects
Could you talk a bit about your background and why you chose to become an artist?
I have quite a multi-cultural background which has led me to a form of universalism. I was born in Norway, but we moved to Australia when I was 6 months old, and then to Singapore. My early memories are all very colorful with a sense of adventure and excitement and learning new cultures and languages. My childhood friends in Singapore were of many different nationalities which is probably why I love living in New York with all the diversity of cultures and languages. Furthermore, languages, cultural codes and philosophy make-up a substantial part of my artistic vocabulary. Upon returning to Norway at the age of 7, I learnt Norwegian from scratch, as well as shift my whole sense of the world. There were new elements of snow and winters.
When I was 16 I got a Nikon 35mm camera and I began shooting bands and writing music reviews for magazines. I was also obsessed with the films and cinematography of the French and Italian film movements but also existential German films and the Bergman films. When I left home at 17, I became a cinema projectionist to support myself which required a technical education in mechanics, optics, light sources, optical sound and film. It was pretty common back then for film students in Norway to work in movie theatres as projectionists. At that junction in my life, I could have either gone into film or art.
I moved to New York at the age of 23 to go to art school and fell in love with the city. New York gave me a sense of artistic freedom and space for expansion. I’ve read a several notes on artists responses to why they become artists, and I really agree with the vision that you don’t choose to become an artist; it chooses you. I think in many cases the true artist’s spirit is something that you’re born with or develop very early on. I think when you dedicate yourself to your work as an artist, it’s not separate from your personal life. It’s a part of your core being, a part of your consciousness, how you perceive the world and your productive self in it. So, it’s not something I decided to become but it was already within me. I also studied social science and politics in Norway prior to moving to New York, which was considered securing ones future in society with a mainstream job. But I am grateful for those years since I do use elements of this in my critical work.
Music for Plutocracy, 2021. With sound by JG Thirlwell. S12 Gallery, Norway. Image courtesy of artist
Could you talk about what inspires you as an artist today and how they relate to your work?
I am still and have been for many years inspired by nature, aspects of culture and philosophy – however there are things I’m unable to do now that I used to be inspired by such as traveling to new places to experience the unknown which is how I often develop new ideas, but it doesn’t affect my creativity in essence. I find that after having lived through 2020 and navigating through the uncertain communal yet polarized societal future, we are pivoting between the idea of a dystopian medieval abyss and the mammoth task of yet again attempting to rebuild towards an enlightened somewhat sustainable future for all beings. We as artists are also consumed with digesting it all, just being human, but also finding ways to survive economically and readjusting to new financial structures.
I think artists have proven to have contributed immensely to the global crisis with forensic criticism, analysis and investigative responses for the public to comprehend what’s going on, as well as initiate inventive community efforts to help a wide range of societal infrastructures, like the educational system by integrating art for youth programs with institutions and galleries, and helping the most vulnerable communities with direct hands on outreach, even help the medical and food programs. For example, an artist friend of mine in Harlem started a communal pantry for families who couldn’t feed their children which has proven to be a hugely successful project, both since the pantry became a place of social focus and communal participation in addition to feeding people. Another friend developed an art program for immigrant children going through trauma. So, a lot of one’s mental energy has been consumed by the current crisis we are living through. I think it’s important to still keep a focus on one’s original practice and persevere with one’s sense of authenticity, authorship and vision. I find that my light sculpture installations that I have exhibited during the pandemic have brought a sense of calmness and reconnection with the idea of beauty, or purity through aesthetics, which ultimately is a great inspiration – to be able to reach people.
Music for Plutocracy, 2021. S12 Gallery, Norway. With a sound environment by JG Thirlwell. Image courtesy of artist
Click here to view video of Music for Plutocracy
I’m currently in Norway for my exhibition which was delayed from May 2020 due to COVID, and opened on January 16th 2021. The idea of a place is an important inspiration to me. Both the geographic placement and surrounding nature like atmospheric conditions i.e. air and climate including the local color palette; ocean, mountains, forest, - as well as the sense of historic presence and its wounds, or narrative. Perceptually, the psychology of architectural space is an important ingredience in my installations. For the immersive light and sound installation in Bergen, Music for Plutocracy, the installation is both perceptual and critical, with ethics as the portal of entry. The building is a 1950’s modernist former fish-packing factory in the harbor of Bergen – which are places of commerce. The gallery faces an old historic military fort with a mountain right behind it. On the water side of the building there are large oil industry ships and tourist industry cruise lines docked, and a view to the other side of the fjord in the distance with city infrastructure. These external elements also inform the critical theme of Music for Plutocracy, which talks about ethics and the exchange of value systems in relation to dysfunctionality of the capitalist system of greed, power, exploitation of resources and the displacement of the citizen’s role within society. Neon as material, traditionally represents the sale of desires, ideas and materialism through seduction. The installation structure is spatially and psychologically perceived as a form of temple, which is a place of devotion and purity. The chromatic light temple, if you will, represents the replacement of values with raw greed and power, a mirror of our times. The philosopher Walter Benjamin proclaimed “Capitalism recognizes neither truce nor redemption”, which qualifies this system as predatory rather than a sanctification of the communal human enterprise and its sustainability.
Elements III Blue, 2019. With sound by C.C. Hennix. SL Gallery, New York. Photo courtesy of the artist
In your installations like Elements III BLUE, your large-scale works utilise light, colour, space, music and technology to create immersive experiences that affect how the space is perceived and experienced by your audience. Could you tell us a bit about your inspiration and creative process involved in this installation? Also, what would you like your visitors to gain from this experience?
Elements II Blue is an investigation into the ethereal properties of the color blue. Blue has a unique significance in art and in the color system. It holds an almost impossible beauty and is mythical, poetic and deep. The Yves Klein marine blue or the blue of infinity, as vastness of space, can hardly be verbalised. So, I wanted to investigate the fullest possible blue experience that I could create. This meant to utilise all technical and ethereal vocabularies to fully impact the human sensorial and cognitive systems. The composition of the installation consists of a grid, or a matrix form where there is a horizon and sets of ascending vertical neon lights. Furthermore, I used variations of blue in the neon tubes and the wall color that operate in different luminal frequencies and temperatures. For example, a cobalt blue is experienced as embodying a deep warmth, while a sky blue or a marine blue has more of a sunny light disposition, and a cooler blue. Then including fluorescent blue, the color tones enhance each other to a very subliminal monochromatic and continuous crescendo that is further enhanced by sound. For this installation, I worked with composer CC Hennix, where I included a composition from 1978 entitled The Well Tuned Marimba, that resonates particles and wavelengths found in atmospheric phenomena, which is quite hypnotic. So, the totality of experience from this piece is to immerse the viewer, yet leave experiential space to wander about inside the installation to view it as a spatial sculptural work simultaneously. The inspiration from this body of works, Elements I-V has evolved over time and is a new chapter of works I’ve been creating since 2018. It is an accumulation of decades of my work focused on perception of space, color theory and employing light as material by harnessing and capturing light.
With immersive and experiential art, the public becomes part of the art work rather than viewing an object on a pedestal or painting on the wall. You enter a space and all aspects of the physical, emotional, psychological and aesthetic realms are the art work itself. Yet simultaneously you are viewing a minimalist sculptural work, only here you are part of it’s mechanics and it’s essence. You can say it’s a participatory artwork. A similar experience is visiting land art, like Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, where you walk on the artwork and follow a path to the center of the spiral. Yet the artwork exists in context of the surrounding nature, the Salt Lake, the desert, weather, natural erosion, geology, time and the horizon. So for what the public should experience in my installations is really a very individual aspect of perception. Since the installations operate on the cognitive level, each person experiences an artwork differently. Light, sound and color effect our systems directly and therefore we are naturally moved. The matrice structure of the installation creates a natural sense of calm and timelessness. We are transported and transformed.
MÔNOSIS/MONOSIS (2020), Teaser, short film series of How We Live Together. Monologue performance by Bill Sage, audio management by JG Thirlwell. Video courtesy of the artist
UTOPIE/UTOPIA (2020), short film Reading performance by Bill Sage, audio management by JG Thirlwell. Video courtesy of the artist
Click here to view teasers of How We Live Together film series
Click here to learn more about actor Bill Sage and composer JG Thirlwell
Collaborating with composers seem to be an important part of your works. You’ve worked with composer, Catherine Christer Hennix for Elements III Blue and JG Thirlwell for your exhibitions, Music for Plutocracy and Radical Light, and for your short films UTOPIE/UTOPIA (2020) and MÔNOSIS/MONOSIS (2020). Could you discuss the music or sound element in your works and how these collaborations came about?
I have worked with JG Thirlwell since 2000 and CC Hennix since around 2013. They are very different composers of course, and each exhibition or installation collaboration is unique. With JG Thirlwell we have collaborated on quite a few video projection installations and short films, like the short films UTOPIE/UTOPIA and now the new Monosis after that, both with the acclaimed actor Bill Sage in a monologue performance based on Roland Barthes pedagogical lecture series How to Live Together on idiorrhythmic living formats as societal structures, written in 1977. A number of the installations are immersive like the multi-projection and mirror installation The Vanity of Vanities All is Vanity at El Magazen D’ell Arte during the 56th Venice Biennale, but quite a few are actually straight video works and short film assemblages. A number of my site-specific projection installations and the interior multiple projection installations I created back in 2000-2015 era with JG Thirlwell were filmed, and then recreated into new video works. So, I use the material multiple times. For example, The Locker Plant Projections from 2011 was a single projection of my video piece Color Synesthesia onto the first building that Donald Judd bought in Marfa, altering the identity and structure of the building, by covering the facade of the building in slow altering color compositions in continuous transformation, which I simultaneously filmed as a site and time-specific work. I then created a short film in which I included JG’s sound again. This film went on tour with the French film festival Rencontres Internationales to Centre Pompidou, Beirut Art Center and Haus der Kultur Der Welt in Berlin. JG Thirlwell’s orchestral compositions are exquisitely melodramatic, yet encapsulates the experimental realm of sound art. He is extremely versatile yet has a strong identity in his compositions and adds a large element of life experience and expertise to my installations.
Polymath CC Hennix is a legend who I am also deeply grateful to be working with. She can sometimes be a teacher, yet we can brainstorm and discuss new collaborative ideas. I usually to go to her archive and find sounds that naturally fit into my installations I have her work in mind for. I usually develop my ideas first and the sound arrives later. I think it’s important that my installations and ideas are anchored in my own world before I even contemplate including sound. But since I am naturally in the world of sound, working with the sensorial and abstract realm, her compositions are quite complimentary and exists as equals and naturally merge. My work exists without sound, yet it can be experienced with sound as well, and the sound I incorporate is also enforced by visual art, so all parties enforce each other. Hennix uses very specific tonal systems and some of her older recordings include Chinese or Japanese instruments like the Sheng in The Well Tuned Marimba. She generally uses electronic keyboards merged with Indian Raga inspired drone, but with a slight flavor of jazz from her roots as a jazz musician in her youth, at least that’s what I hear. She is also an amazing writer and poet, a philosopher and mathematician specialized in logics. She just released a set of poetry books and is also just released a remastered double LP on her early keyboard works from the 70’s so she is quite productive as well.
Comosis Collages 4A531220, Composition no 10, 2018, 40 x 65 inches. Edition of 6
The Cosmosis Collages series were influenced by Suprematists and Constructivists movements from the early 20th century. Could you select one or two photograph/s from this series in the exhibition, and speak about the narrative behind the works?
This series of photographic works exist on several levels. They are photographic collages in that they are collaged digitally from scanned color film negatives. They are not just digitally patched together as shapes but I layer them meticulously with texture and color. Originally, I developed them as sketches for the Elements installation works, as spatial and structural ideas, or as “potentials”. The images exist autonomously but I see them also as part of the Elements series. When I started working on Elements, it was important to see space purely and creatively removed from the engineering aspect of the installation process. Since the installations are created from a space of inner freedom, I had to find the technical solutions afterwards, which is always possible and I consider problem solving. I find the process to be an important part of the artwork, but that can also be an artwork in itself.
As for my influences, I find that in this era of transformation, we cyclically seem to revolve around a lot of the same existential questions, and sometimes evolutionary breakthroughs. The era of Dadaism, and prior to that is really an inspirational artistic space in history. The Russian cosmists and constructivists were consumed with ideas of immortality and the quest for controlling life, and to balance the pendulum of the internal and external, meaning religion and science, technological developments and the power of the machine which talks about the beginning of human consciousness. I find the human psyche and its capabilities quite fascinating and mystical. In Plato’s ideas on perception that are echoed in Malevich’s texts on Suprematism - the object, the form, or volume, can be seen as an embodiment, a consciousness and an awareness of something. This gave way to releasing the literal and figurative to abstract thinking, science and mathematics alongside the development of technology in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Through this era we can potentially circle back to equality, universality and thinking of new economies of society. The politics of perception.
Cosmosis Collages 4A5212 Composition #7E2, 2018
The Cosmosis Collages 4A5212 Composition #7E2, 2018 is the first piece I created in the series and reminds me of an almost modernist Christian altarpiece you would see in Scandinavia in the 1970’s. I placed the horizontal line boldly across the composition, which is something I would never have done earlier. The squares and circles that are freely placed seemingly turning and disintegrating, as time turns, references the view into kaleidoscopes, and also a simplification of middle eastern geometric shapes and structures you see in Islamic patterns and in vernacular architecture. Yellow is a bold color I haven’t used much either, and of course has mythical aspects towards the sun and nature, a harmony – yet a friction when merged with blue.
Cosmosis Collages 4274A7 Composition no 204, 2018
Cosmosis Collages 4274A7 Composition no 204, 2018 is one of the later pieces in the series where I referenced the actual engineering aspects of the Elements installations as process, simply utilise the architectural and illustrative aesthetic. So, these are projected structures as autonomous compositions, i.e. the embodiment of a potential. The colors I have chosen for the structure are harmonious to emphasize the blueness within the blue. Yet a flesh pink and light yellow is slightly uncomfortable here. I rather enjoy the resonating machinery in the compositions. The simplified references to early technology and computer games are also part of a visual vocabulary. Many of these pieces are leaning towards the lower end of the frame, which is also an awkward element that I like to challenge, it forces the eye upwards to a seemingly empty space - which if you look closely, details emerge from the blue.
The Sensory Chamber I-III, 2020-21. With sound by JG Thirlwell. 38 min loop, video projection, salt and sound. Images courtesy of the artist
What kind of projects would you like to work on in the future? And could you share some of your upcoming projects?
I am very excited to be working on a new exhibition in Finland at the new Kunsthalle Seinäjoki, where the installation will cover the whole first floor of the art center; 520 m2/ 5600 square feet. This will be the 6th chapter of Elements, and a continuation of Radical Light – Elements IV from Kai Art Center in Tallin Estonia in 2020, where this is a collaboration with between the two art centers. The exhibition will also include a new version of The Sensory Chamber, a projection installation onto a bed of salt.
Radical Light – Elements IV from Kai Art Center in Tallin, Estonia in 2020
We are building on the concept of a monochromatic white light spectrum ranging from a satin-orchid white at 4100 kelvin to a stratospheric blue-white 8300 kelvin in dialogue with an industrial space and the northern hemisphere. Kai Art center is a former Submarine factory in the Noblessner harbor in Tallinn, Estonia built in 1912 by the nephew of Alfred Nobel during the Russian Imperial era. It has a beautiful vaulted ceiling like the Park Avenue Armory in NY and painted all white. When Radical Light opened in January 2020 during the dark season we were deprived of light so it was quite impactful, while Kunsthalle Seinäjoki is a former textile factory similar to DIA Beacon with an industrial 19th century architectural history, so to install a mammoth white light sculptural structure here during the height of natural light, will be a new spectacular experience. The installation opens close to midsummer night, which as a natural phenomena in the northern hemisphere is a special time for Scandinavians. There is basically no night-time for 3 months that far north. Being from Norway and working with light and space, the constellation of internal and external eternal light is a time-event that I’m excited to experience myself. It’s a forward moving reinvention and a gestural cleansing, simultaneously going to the source itself, which is light.
I am also working on a book of all the Elements installations that includes some very interesting authors and will be published next summer in conjunction with the exhibition at Kunsthalle Seinäjoki.
Furthermore, I am working on a presentation of the 4-short films in the How We Live Together project in collaboration with brilliant acclaimed actor Bill Sage who I am very honored to be working with, and with JG Thirlwell on sound.
For future unknown projects I would of course love to build further on my public art commissions, biennials, institutional and museum exhibitions. I am also thinking more about film as well in longer and larger format. But as a wish list project, I’d love to create a monumental neon installation at the Park Avenue Armory and include live sound performances and Butoh dance performances.
On Eternities Tablets: Anne Katrine Senstad
Virtual Solo Exhibition
Curated by Sarah Walko
https://www.openartadvisory.com/on-eternities-tablets
For inquiries, please email:
Info@openartadvisory.com
For inquires on available works or art commissions:
Christine Lee
christine@openartadvisory.com
+917.224.0680