Glass, earth, fire

There’s fire in the art of Per Inge Bjørlo (b. 1952). He nurtures a seeringly intense and uncompromising dedication to art. As an art museum, we robustly advocate the importance of art for society. This is why we are so happy to be able to host Bjørlo’s art this winter, when all three floors of KUBE, plus the dining room of Jugendstilsenteret, will be given over to the exhibition “Glass, earth, fire”.

The title of the exhibition points to the heart of Bjørlo’s art. Glass is one of his materials of choice. In the course of production, glass transforms from a liquid to a solid form. It can shatter without warning and take on a highly threatening aspect. The ambiguous nature of glass is also present in a window, which allows us to look outwards, onto the world outside, but also inwards into private spaces.

Each individual’s time on earth is a subjective experience. While that span is all there is for the individual, it is no time at all in the bigger scheme of things. We are all part of the great cycle of nature. Through the medium of art, Bjørlo addresses the possibilities of human experience in the interval between birth and death. His art is highly personal, yet also universal.

Fire too has left its traces in Bjørlo’s art, both literally and metaphorically. Fire alludes to our perceptions and our vital force, that which guides us through existence. Both destructive and life-giving at one and the same time, fire has played a part in the creation of several of Bjørlo’s works.

It is under the umbrella of these three words, glass, earth and fire, that we present the exhibition at Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE. Containing both older and entirely new works, the exhibition reflects Bjørlo’s life from his childhood in Spjelkavik in the 1950s and 60s through to the present.

The route to art

Sitting on a prairie somewhere in the Midwest, USA, in 1969, we see the sixteen-year-old Per Inge Bjørlo. He has run away from home and his family in Spjelkavik. His journey takes him first to New York, before he finds a job as a farm hand in South Dakota. But it isn’t long before he realises that the problems he is running away from have followed him across the ocean to this new continent. Physically, he finds himself in new surroundings, but his thoughts are still back in the old country.

After six months, he returns home. There, he takes up football. During a match, he suffers a serious head injury. In Bjørlo’s own words: “I lay there unconscious for three weeks. I had lost the ability to speak, had to start over again. The ‘health system’ came along with its patchwork bandage of neurological, psychiatric and social care, and spun me a cocoon. I stayed like that for two and a half years, before they started to unwind it again. It took four years before I was fully unwrapped.”[1]

It is during this period that Bjørlo discovers the power of art. He is drawn to it. Important people along the way include Einar Aarø at Borgund vocational college, Eilif Amundsen, Asbjørn Brekke and Zinken Hopp in Bergen, Povl Christensen in Denmark, and later the company of his fellow students in the class of Ludvig Eikaas at the art academy in Oslo.[2] For Bjørlo this journey gives him a feeling of finding a new family, the art family.[3]

The early works

In 1980, Bjørlo makes his debut at the National Annual Autumn Exhibition with the work Helsing til Abeba (Greeting to Abeba), which consists of the portrait of a woman and the inscription “Opphev innvandringsstoppen” (End the freeze on immigration). The background to the work is an ongoing media debate about the difficult conditions for undocumented migrants in Norway.[4] The work is an early illustration of Bjørlo’s deep interest in social issues, both as a private person and as an artist.

The work that marks his breakthrough is the installation Inner Space I, which is unveiled at Henie Onstad Art Centre in 1984. For this, he fills an entire basement room with rubber, everything from car tires to the protective mats used in rock blasting, and rubber chips, materials he has been collecting for many years. In addition, the installation includes eight monumental lino cuts in black and white. This work establishes Bjørlo’s reputation as a pioneer in the field of installation art in Norway.[5]

This is the first in a series of five installations, Inner Space I–V, that Bjørlo creates in the late 1980s. All five works address the condition of the inner self with reference to the artist’s own experience. The materials used in the works – rubber, metal, mirrors, glass, and 1000 watt light bulbs – have an oppressive impact on the senses, inducing discomfort, claustrophobia and anxiety in those who enter the installations. The spaces significantly raise the viewer’s levels of physical and mental self-awareness. Bjørlo creates these spaces for DAAD Galerie in Berlin in 1986, the Venice Biennale in 1988, and Louisiana Museum in 1989.

The last installation in the series, Inner Space V (1990), the only one of the five that still exists, is on permanent display at the National Museum in Oslo. In 2013, Bjørlo adds a sixth work to the series, Inner Space VI. The Realm of Life, created for Ekebergparken in Oslo. These inner spaces explore both individual and collective experience. Although highly charged with the artist’s own emotions, they simultaneously allow us as viewers to respond with our own feelings. In this respect, they illustrate a dual dynamic in Bjørlo’s art.

The family

In his works on inner spaces, Bjørlo references his experience of growing up in Spjelkavik.[6] And it is precisely this ability to access and transform details and memories from his personal biography to create boundary-breaking art that characterises his work.

As the festival artist for the 1991 edition of the Bergen International Festival, Bjørlo fills Bergen Kunstforening (now Bergen Kunsthall) with a highly personal narrative. In contrast to his inner spaces, the works in the Bergen exhibition are more direct. The monumental installations he creates for the four halls include sculptures and paintings. Collectively, the works portray close relationships – to his grandmother, father and mother, and to himself. The expressive idiom leaves little doubt about the how the artist feels towards the people portrayed. From a degree of openness to his grandmother, to the darkness of his father, and a mother who is darker still, and finally to the son himself – a story that is only partially told. With its focus on family descent and generations, the exhibition carries the dedication: “To my grandmother, my origin, the industrial revolution, and good heredity.”

Bjørlo’s upbringing in Spjelkavik is far from straightforward. He grows up in a home that is insecure and troubled by alcoholism, a situation that forced him to find his own path in life and art. Per Hovdenakk describes the circumstances of Bjørlo’s childhood in Spjelkavik as follows:

“A ‘small-town community’ like so many others, overtaken by the inexorable, progressive policies of the Gerhardsen governments of the post-war years, with their emphasis on industry and prosperity and, moreover, the dissolution of centuries-old traditions and values. A society where prosperity was an attractive veneer that concealed dramatic ruptures and broken destinies. An era that piled up problems for Per Inge Bjørlo’s generation, leaving them to find their own way and their own solutions. The representatives of the period prior to industrialisation, the generation of Per Inge Bjørlo’s grandparents, stood as loyal defenders of past values and qualities. His parents’ generation had to contend with pressures from both the ‘old times’ and the new. For some, those pressures were too much, and they sought escape by fleeing from reality.”[7]

On entering the 2023 exhibition in Ålesund, you encounter the works Mother – Me … (2015) and Me – Father … (2019), which are portraits of these close relationships. Given the universality of the need to relate to one’s origins, the works in the exhibition hold considerable scope for interpretation.

© Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Mother – Me …, 2015. Me – Father …, 2019. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Industrial culture

As an adult, Bjørlo has found his home in Hønefoss. Far from the part of Western Norway where he grew up, Hønefoss has allowed him to put his life in perspective, and it is after settling here in the 1980s that his artistic career takes off. Thanks to his upbringing in Spjelkavik, Bjørlo is already steeped in industrial culture, something he also finds all around him in Hønefoss. The work of collecting rubber for Inner Space helps him to establish a network of contacts with local industry in Hønefoss. In due course, he enters into close collaboration with Follum Factory, where he also sets up a studio. The resulting access to materials proves decisive for the development of his artistic idiom in the years that follow. The use of surplus industrial materials has been a consistent feature of his work throughout his career.

For Bjørlo, these materials induce a particular feeling. They carry social and cultural associations to industrial work that feel familiar and which he greatly appreciates.[8] In several of his early exhibition catalogues, he thanks his industrial collaboration partners by name. Several of Bjørlo’s works involve industrial production processes. One important collaboration has been with Swedish firm Deform AB, which makes it possible to produce some of the large steel sculptures he has created for public spaces. Alexis (1998) is a group of six such sculptures, created as site-specific works for Oslo’s Gardemoen Airport. They are made from eight millimetre thick, acid-washed stainless steel, sandblasted with olivine sand from Sunnmøre.[9] Representing advanced industrialised production processes, the sculptures are produced in close dialogue with engineers, mathematicians and physicists.

In the course of the 2000s, Bjørlo collaborates with industry to create a number of large metal sculptures that push materials to their extremes. At first glance, these public works seem to use a more neutral idiom, but when we consider, for example, their titles, it becomes clear that they are still concerned with personal and emotive issues. Talking about Genes (2016), a fairly recent sculpture that stands in a municipal park in Ålesund, Bjørlo has said: “The sculpture is a tribute to people who haven’t quite made it in life. Those who have wandered off course, who have gained alternative insights and experience of life, but who also deserve to be listened to. Especially in an era when it’s assumed that society makes life smooth and easy for everyone.”[10]

Artistic exploration

In his early career, Bjørlo became known for his holistic immersive installations. Many of these were the outcome of gruelling work processes. For example, when developing his early graphic works, he would continue to the point of literally collapsing from physical exhaustion, a crisis he then interpreted as a sign of having finished the work.[11] In recent years, he has tended to favour objects that are smaller scale and less immersive.[12]

Bjørlo’s 2008 exhibition “Forteljing frå lukt og lyd / ikkje visst om eg vil meir? …” (The tale of smell and sound / not sure I want more? …) at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo presents an artist who is evidently on a mission to expand his artistic idiom. In the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Bjørlo is described as an artist’s artist who has earned great respect within the art community.[13] Here as well the author seeks to elucidate the difference between the early works of the 1980s and the contemporary works: “[…] the visual aspect has become more detailed and nuanced. The atmosphere is no longer general; the sense of menace hanging in the air, the mix of aggression and depression, despair and hope. The emotions that attach to his newer works are more specific. They radiate from compositions that use variations in density, in surface tactility and rhythmic pulse. The light is alternately piercing and intense or soft and calm.”[14] The emphasis is on the aspect of artistic exploration in the selected works.

Works of this kind also figure in the major mid-career show that Bjørlo presents at Henie Onstad Art Centre in 2011, the place where his career began. This exhibition consists largely of new works, including Child Bed (2011) and Adult Bed(2011), which also feature in the current exhibition at Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE. Curator of the exhibition at Henie Onstad Art Centre, Caroline Ugelstad, describes the works in the 2011 show as narrative in their use of titles and abstract in form.[15] While the autobiographic aspect is still conspicuous and crucial, the choice of materials and techniques echoes earlier works. At the same time, the new works reveal the artist’s increasing determination to subject his own artistic idiom to formal investigation.

Personal history is always a necessary and natural element of Bjørlo’s art, but throughout his career he has always placed equal emphasis on the universal. The monumental Flowers for Mother (2014–2017) can be viewed from this perspective, because almost everyone at some point or other has made the gesture of giving flowers to their mother. This work, which receives its first ever showing here in Ålesund, defines a central axis running through the exhibition, around which the other works are oriented. Flowers for Mother was created at the time of the exhibition “Head to Head” at the Munch Museum in 2017. There, Bjørlo is presented in conjunction with the artists Lena Cronqvist and Edvard Munch. Here again, the exhibition consists of larger and smaller individual works combined to form a holistic installation, where the space also contains works by Munch.

Another installation of this type is Og såra veks i oss alle … (And the Wound Grows in Us All …) (2019), a work that is first shown at the 2019 Drawing Triennial in Kunstnernes Hus and is now in the collection of Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE. Around the same time, Bjørlo gave a talk about his work under the same title at Kunstnernes Hus. This presentation could be regarded as a thank you from him to the art community, which has been so important in his life. In his lecture, he offered generous insights into his life and work and strongly urged the art community not to lose sight of the value of art for the present. Among his closing remarks during this event, he declared: “We must make corrections, everyone must correct themselves. Correct the time. Individually, we are helpless. But together we can do something to mitigate the distance that so easily arises between us.”[16] Bjørlo is a master at reaching out to the individual through his uncompromising art.

The exhibition at Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE in the winter of 2023–24 presents a number of independent works, some older, some entirely new, carefully selected to convey a broader narrative that invites us into his art. As Bjørlo himself has said: “Art is the greatest metaphor; it leads to understanding and insight for us all.”[17]

Welcome Home, 2004. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Welcome Home, 2004. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

It is nearly twenty years since Bjørlo’s first solo exhibition in Ålesund, “Tvilens perspektiv. Samtalar 1” (The Perspective of Doubt. Conversations 1), at Jugendstilsenteret. In one of the works created for that exhibition, Welcome Home (2004), he transforms the grand dining room at Jugendstilsenteret into a physical allegory, by replacing the tablecloths with razor-sharp splinters of glass shooting up from a cover of white felt. The work is now in the museum’s collection and is displayed again as part of the current exhibition. With his economic use highly expressive elements, Bjørlo activates the potential of the room itself and its inherent qualities.

The warmth of the title together with the chill induced by the choice of materials add up to an installation that balances on a knife edge. The title invites an autobiographic reading with references to one’s place of birth and family relationships. At the same time, the stylish quality of the dining room makes us think of the bourgeois emphasis on facades, and the tendency to keep so much hidden behind the walls of the home. In general, Bjørlo’s interpretation of the space conjures up the nervousness and tensions that often haunt formalised meetings between people.

Flowers for Mother, 2014–2017. Mother, You Are So Beautiful Today, 2008–2014. You Are So Dead Today, Mother …, 2008–2014. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Flowers for Mother, 2014–2017. Mother, You Are So Beautiful Today, 2008–2014. You Are So Dead Today, Mother …, 2008–2014. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Flowers for Mother, 2014–2017. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

On display in KUBE’s monumental main hall is Flowers for Mother (2014–2017). With a width of some six metres, the work consists of a rose in all the colours of the rainbow, laid on a bed of rubber chips. On closer inspection, one notices sharp metal spikes that are thrust through small pieces of glass, a reminder that roses also have thorns. In the same room we find the series of drawings Mother, You Are So Beautiful Today (2008–2014), which depicts a young woman in a wedding dress, and the series You Are So Dead Today Mother … (2008–2014), which depicts an elderly woman on her sickbed close to death.

Each and every one of us is born of a mother, a fact that binds us together. It is both a universal and a personal experience. What emerges from Bjørlo’s processing of his own experience is something that becomes an expression of solidarity with others. For a child, the most beautiful flower might be a weed, whereas a rose, and especially a red rose, is associated with romantic love. Giving flowers to someone you care about is a meaningful ritual. But you can never know for sure whether the affection it expresses will be reciprocated.

Class Distinction, 2018/2023. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Class Distinction, 2018/2023. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

 

This is the second site-specific work Bjørlo has created for Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE. The first was Welcome Home(2004), which plays out in the magnificent dining room. The second is Class Distinction (2018–2023), a revised version of a work from 2018, adapted to what was previously the bank vault of Norges Bank, but which is now part of the exhibition space at KUBE. Both of these works address divisions between social classes. But where Welcome Home was fairly subtle, Class Distinction is more direct, with its references to a room that was formerly used to store money and other high-value items. The work touches on issues of power and the human inclination to place oneself above others.

Glass – Earth – Fire (1-5), 2022. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

© Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

© Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

© Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

© Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

© Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

On KUBE’s upper floor we find a room that clearly reveals the artistic and human challenges that Bjørlo is currently confronting. The works on show reflect processes that are ongoing in his studio and bear witness to an artist in constant development. It can be daunting to find oneself face to face with so many individual works in one and the same room. They set the space in motion, engaging our attention at a febrile level. It is an intensity that we can attribute to the chaotic times we live in. Accordingly, one can draw parallels to earlier works that showed Bjørlo’s deep concern with social issues. And it is precisely this feeling that the juxtaposition of works seeks to elicit. The sheer volume of sensory input can seem overwhelming, but if you take the time to focus on the works, details begin to emerge. With time and effort, one discovers just how much can be expressed through art.

Child Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Child Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Child Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Child Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Child Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Lying on a steel-framed bed we see a frail creature waving its arms. Close by, one glimpses metal structures dressed in textiles and mirrors. This use of textiles lends the work a soft aspect that seems to harmonise with the installation’s title, Child Bed. Bjørlo portrays the new-born as a brand-new product, full of hope and future prospects. At the same time, he underlines the inevitable corollaries of kinship, such as genetics and situation.[18] The work projects a line that reaches out from the beginning and points forward in life, towards the various systems that make up society: school, politics, religion and more. One can almost feel the vulnerability of the child on the bed, lying there so alone in life. On entering the room, one becomes a participant in the work, thanks to mirrors that puts one’s own origins and experience into perspective.

Adult Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Detail, Adult Bed, 2011. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

Adult Bed consists of a steel bench surrounded on all sides by mirrors. Above it hangs a crystal chandelier illuminated by a 1,000 watt bulb. There are clear parallels here to the installation Class Distinction. Both works use the same glass elements, probably to symbolise the frequent superficiality of the bourgeois way of life. Lying in such a bed is a nightmare. The lightbulb in the chandelier can be viewed as a symbol for life itself, something that demands full attention. Individually, we show considerable variation in our ability to master life as an adult. The mirrors around the bed suggest narcissistic traits. Might they also refer to our nearest and dearest – those who reflect us in everyday life – and who mean most to us and our own sense of self.

Using simple and familiar materials, the three portraits of Bjørlo’s Parkinson series offer yet further insight into private spaces. Throughout his career, Bjørlo has frequently reverted to the self-portrait as a form of expression. The self-portrait allows a kind of evaluation of one’s current state of mind and levels of endurance. Superimposed on an outline of his skull, the portraits cover the full range from quick sketches to major works. These three self-portraits explore his condition of living with Parkinson’s disease. The works in this room are further reinforced by the juxtaposition with other groups of works in the exhibition. And not least, perhaps, when viewed in conjunction with his most recent works, which reveal an artist who is constantly digging deeper and developing.

The Truth (1-12), 2015. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

The Truth (1-12), 2015. © Per Inge Bjørlo/BONO. Foto: Marius Beck Dahle/ Viti.

The Truth consists of twelve drawings that reflect Bjørlo’s personal life experience. Clearly visible is the outline of someone in the hands of the healthcare system. The same figure is present in all the drawings. Evidently his position is vulnerable. We see him sitting alone at a table, being attacked by birds, or in the company of other people. Although the drawings have no words, they are far from silent. The title tells us that they carry a truth, but it is left to the viewer to decide what that truth might be. As Vigdis Hjort has written about Bjørlo’s work: “The truth value of the works lies in the impression they make on the viewer. To discover the extent of their truth, one needs to consult not the artist’s biography, but one’s heart.”[19]

[1] Per Inge Bjørlo, “– og såra veks i oss alle …”, lecture at Kunstnernes Hus 12.01.2019, from 8:55 min.

[2] Per Hovdenakk, “Bibliografi”, in Bjørlo, eds. Poul Erik Tøjner and Torsten Bløndal, Herlof Hatlebrekke & Edition Bløndal, 1991, p. 88.

[3] Per Inge Bjørlo, “– og såra veks i oss alle …”, lecture at Kunstnernes Hus 12.01.2019, from 9:50 min.

[4] Caroline Ugelstad, “Indre og ytre rom”, in Per Inge Bjørlo, PAX Forlag 2012, p. 20.

[5] Øystein Ustvedt. Ny norsk kunst. Etter 1900, p. 87.

[6] Caroline Ugelstad, “Indre og ytre rom”, in Per Inge Bjørlo, PAX Forlag 2012, p. 14.

[7] Per Hovdenakk, “Bibliografi”, in Bjørlo, eds. Poul Erik Tøjner and Torsten Bløndal, Herlof Hatlebrekke & Edition Bløndal, 1991, p. 88.

[8] Caroline Ugelstad, “Indre og ytre rom”, in Per Inge Bjørlo, PAX Forlag 2012, p. 20.

[9] Caroline Ugelstad, “Indre og ytre rom”, in Per Inge Bjørlo, PAX Forlag 2012, p. 49.

[10] Solfrid Vartdal, “Hyller det sårbare”, Sunnmørsposten 15.03.2017. Taken from: www.smp.no/kultur/i/4zEz5V/hyller-det-sarbare (retrieved 07.09.2023).

[11] Caroline Ugelstad, “Indre og ytre rom”, in Per Inge Bjørlo, PAX Forlag 2012, p. 23.

[12] Gunnar Danbolt, Frå modernisme til det kontemporære. Tendensar i norsk samtidskunst etter 1900, Det Norske Samlaget 2014, p. 236.

[13] Geir Harald Samuelsen, “Forord”, in Forteljing frå lukt og lyd / ikkje visst om eg vil meir?…, eds. Trine Gilmyr and Maaretta Jaukkuri, Kunstnernes Hus, 2008, p. 5.

[14] Maaretta Jaukkuri, “Lyden og luktens former”, in Forteljing frå lukt og lyd / ikkje visst om eg vil meir?…, eds. Trine Gilmyr and Maaretta Jaukkuri, Kunstnernes Hus, 2008, p. 25.

[15] Caroline Ugelstad, “Indre og ytre rom”, in Per Inge Bjørlo, PAX Forlag 2012, p. 54.

[16] Per Inge Bjørlo, “– og såra veks i oss alle …”, lecture at Kunstnernes Hus 12.01.2019, from 51:40 min.

[17] Per Inge Bjørlo, “– og såra veks i oss alle …”, lecture at Kunstnernes Hus 12.01.2019, from 12 min.

[18] Per Inge Bjørlo, “– og såra veks i oss alle …”, lecture at Kunstnernes Hus 12.01.2019, from 15:20 min.

[19] Vigdis Hjort, “Åh, familien!”, in Hode ved hode. Cronqvist, Bjørlo, Munch. Kunsten og livet, eds. Kari J. Brandtzæg, Munchmuseet and Uten tittel 2017, p. 91.