Siri Aurdal: Continuum

Continuum was the Norwegian sculptor Siri Aurdal’s (b. 1937, based in Oslo) largest solo exhibition to date – and her first since 1980.

Siri Aurdal’s monumental sculpture Onda Volante attracted considerable attention in the Nordic Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. The curator was Mats Stjernstedt, now Director of Malmö Konsthall. The following year, the work was shown in Malmö as part of the exhibition Continuum. In addition to the large-scale sculptures, the exhibition featured Conversation (2018), a series of works in transparent, coloured plexiglass that led viewers through a dissolved space of suspended mobiles and labyrinthine formations. The exhibition was presented in collaboration with Eline Mugaas (b. 1969), a Norwegian artist who played a crucial role in Aurdal’s return to artistic practice.

Influences from Travels in Europe

With this sculptural series, Siri Aurdal staged a radical idea of modular use – a sculptural system in constant transformation. She combined this with equally radical thinking about art’s relationship to architecture and to its viewers, grounded in an understanding of the social context that art both exists within and creates. At the time, she was influenced by currents of thought encountered during her travels and stays in early 1960s Europe.

A Combination of Works

Malmö Konsthall also presented Intervju (1968–2018), reconfigured specifically for the gallery’s open space. For the Malmö presentation, the work was expanded and merged with Conversation (2018). Both works, made of transparent, coloured plexiglass, guided the viewer through a space dissolved into hanging mobiles and maze-like formations.

Characteristic of Aurdal’s practice in the late 1960s was her use of new industrial materials – plexiglass and a type of reinforced fiberglass produced for Norway’s oil industry in the late ’60s. The fiberglass material was cut according to the artist’s original drawings and assembled into combinations of undulating, Möbius-like formations.

A Breakthrough in Venice

The presentation in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale marked a significant international breakthrough for Siri Aurdal. It confirmed her return to artistic work after a long hiatus – a return that began with several important steps in Oslo between 2013 and 2016.

Groundbreaking Art of the 1960s

The exhibition title Continuum, like Aurdal’s practice more broadly, points to the potential for change. This potential is shaped by spatial conditions – by the possibilities and constraints that architecture offers. Aurdal’s ambition to combine formal and geometric decisions with social interaction was a bold and singular position within the Scandinavian art scene of the late 1960s. Her ideas marked important advances, and after a temporary absence, they have reemerged – ready to be experienced anew and to continue shaping the field.