In early 2016 Louise Dany (LD) invited the Institute for New Connotative Action (INCA) to invite artists and writers who would have full autonomy to organize events in their space in Oslo. Sparked by conversations on how hegemony re-writes narratives in its favour, the collaboration will lead to a series of seminars, talks and actions throughout autumn/winter of 2016 and the spring of 2017.
With INCA Abroad, LD and INCA want to look closer at the claimed ‘universality’ of abstraction and how this manifests through the concept of taste. Abstraction is widely used as an example to segment the false narrative of “universality” vs. “identity politics” in art, setting the standard for when an artwork or an artist is universally valid or merely obsessed with a ‘personal, peripheral narrative’ (as if being a woman, a person of color or a migrant etc. is a ‘personal’ experience compared with the “normal” of the western world). If we have been floating in the murky waters of ‘post-identity’ since early 2000, a real intersectional attitude is called for. INCA Abroad focuses on bringing new voices and perspectives to Oslo by inviting artists, scholars and poets, several of which will visit Norway for the first time.
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SONDRA PERRY
RESIDENT EVIL SEMINAR
AUGUST 24 – 28, 2016
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JAMES & BREA MCANALLY
SARRITA HUNN
PREFIGURATIVE INSTITUTIONS
FEBRUARY 10-11
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Louise Dany goes by they and is an artist run initiative in a mirror-windowed store front and apartment in Oslo, established in 2016 by Ina Hagen and Daisuke Kosugi. It alternates between a hosting venue for other establishments, a semi-private exhibition space and salon for art related events. Daily it is a private living and working space as well as a social meeting place.
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“WEIRD people (White, Educated, Institutional, Rich, Democrat-leaning) dominate the art world. One of the many tools at their disposal is taste. Through naturalistic sounding but never empirically formed discourses, the word taste is implied through many forms: though seldom used explicitly, (that would be bad taste).
Let’s have a look at how taste and related claims of universality are implicit strategies of hegemony.
It is often claimed in art schools and art markets that there are universal aspects of formal art. This idea is old, but became popular at least with Documenta II in 1959, corresponding exactly with the apex of high modernism. The argument goes something like this: those with taste are able to discern the forms, shapes, colors, tones, and patterns that make up a superior, formally successful work of art. Such a successful work of art can be recognized universally as such. (…)”
-First paragraph from WEIRD Universal Art: (Art, Power, and Representation), text written for the occasion. (Bergman and Salinas, 2016)
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The program is supported by Norsk Kulturråd
Equipment is generously provided by Podium, Oslo
