~LARS MONRAD VAAGE !!
LARS MONRAD VAAGE has just opened a one man show !!
if you are in NORWAY – you can check it out !!
LARS MONRAD VAAGE
APRIL 16 – MAY 10, 2009
GALLERI RIIS – FILIPSTADUEIEN 5 – OSLO, NORWAY
LARS was kind enough to send us some photos !!
Lars writes:
“My family relaxing in the hallway of the gallery. From left, Mama, Grandmother, Lulu, Papa, and AMREI, Lulu’s daughter, playing with a paper-plane my dad made. Some of Stein Ronnings photos in the background.”
‘Trophy’.
“A Viking-ship, returning home from battle, proudly using the Turkish flag they took from a mosque as a sail. I used this image for a Nationalmuseum show, now the painting is more rendered and physical.”
‘Selfmade’.
“This painting has taken forever to finish, but now it finally is, and i think it is one of my best ones.. I have shown it a couple of times unfinished.
In a cave somewhere outside civilization, our hero has built a machine that generates electricity, and is fueled by wood. This is existing technology, widely used in Europe after the Second World War, when gasoline was rationed. A normal combustion engine, can run on fumes form wood. You only have to change the carburetor, and the tank is replaced by an oven, where you first heat coal, and then fill with wood. As the air-supply is limited the wood boils rather than burns, and the released fumes are explosive, and ignite with the help of spark plugs just like gasoline.
In the cave, the machine has a dynamo, so our hero can just go out and chop down a tree, and he’s got electricity.
Its a kind of hippieish idea of being self-sufficient, but unlike the long-haired hemp-wearers, this guy is high-tech, and the showing of back to the government contains no wish of turning back the clock. Maybe all the work with building this contained world, actually saves up free time in the end, he’s got no job, no bills to pay, no bureaucracy to satisfy, and at the same time he can use all the time-saving devices run by electricity. In the painting you see tools from the building of the machine on the workbench, like an old-fashioned hand drill, that he needed before he had electricity. A parafin-lamp that he enters the room with in the morning, before he starts the machine. An electric fan, it gets really hot in there with the oven burning. Some arrow-heads, string, and sticks for making bow and arrow, now that he can work in the evenings under the light-bulbs, making weapons and such, hunting is fun, and meat is good.”
‘Fra Rode Orm’.
“An oar is sticking out of a hole of a ship’s side, inside there is a Viking enslaved by the Kalif.
There are 2 guys working each oar, the guy next to our hero, Rode Orm, is Arabic, and during the years he has learned the language. In hope of emancipation the Viking is making a poem about how water with lemon-juice is better than wine, that he hopes to get to send to the Kalif in one of the harbours. And its raining paint.”
‘Fruit & Futurism’.
“A painting of a sculpture I saw on TV in the background of a shoot-out on CNN, an improvement of an existing sculpture that stands on a square in Bhagdad.”
‘There is joy in repetition.’
“The sculpture made it to Oslo, but collapsed slightly when it felt at home, making it look even better. The thing
is made of leftovers form me painting, corks, paint etc, parts of toys, dolls, pingpong balls, and about 8000 q-tips, dipped in acrylics, and partially spray-painted in black. It started with a silly small piece of wood on my office-desk, and my head being totally empty, just like they tried to in Ghostbusters. Whatever eas lying around was put on top of each other with super-glue, and when my studio was empty of stuff I went across the street and got all the q-tips they had. After lots pf these zombie-sessions, the thing was suddenly big, and I needed a ladder. Even though I enjoy inventing stuff, and work hard to get better at painting, I loved being free from thoughts for weeks at a time.”
GALLERI RIIS, Oslo, NORWAY.
The gallery is located in the harbour in Oslo city-centre.
“During my stay in Norway I also installed my stuff in a group show that opens may 2nd in VESTFOSSEN KUNSTLABERATORIUM outside Oslo. It is a 2000m2 old factory, and has one show a year. This year the show is called ‘Nachspiel/Vorspiel.’
Participating artists are: Inghild Carlsen, Olav Christopher Jenssen, Per Barclay, Bjorn-Sigurd Tufta, Bjarne Melgaard, A K Dolven, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ole Jorgen Naess, Borre Saethre, Book & Heden, Martin Skauen, Lars Monrad Vaage, Josefine Lyche, Mari Slaattelid, Sverre Bjertnes, Kjersti G. Andvig, Ane Mette Hol, Marit Folstad, Bard Ask og Helene Sommer.”
‘Spring & Machines’
crayon on paper. I have been doing a lot of small drawings with crayon, its quick, and very much like painting. I like a lot that I can jump from place to place, and still make it solid, and look mote or less real.”
‘Rode Orm escapes & the Worlds Fastest Train’.
‘Too Cool for School III’
“This is the third version I made of this motif, a police-car is covered with snow, the lights from the siren shines a bit through the snow. The idea is banal, the atmosphere is nice. In Norway the schools are closed when it is less than -25 degrees Celsius, so its a normal thing to dream about for kids. I remember that it was -24 many times, but never -25.”
LULU and LARS.
. . . “after all the work installing the show, Lulu and I relaxed on an island off Oslo, I’m the beauty in the background – eating a hot dog.”
. . . . in the studio, before the show:
Lars Monrad Vaage is currently based in Berlin, Germany, where he has a studio, and where he did the work for the GALLERI RIIS installation.
that’s where he put the finishing touches on the big paintings, which he started almost 2 years ago, and built the 8,000 q-tip sculpture. It involved dipping the q-tips into color and letting them dry.
His girlfriend, Lulu – helped him.
Lars writes:
“The luxury part of painting, signing, making up the titles, and making the backsides pretty.”
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY: LMV/Galleri Riis
to see what else, Lars is up to – check out his: website !! talk about – sweet & brief !!
