Bow and Arrow, Arrow and Bow

Jan Hakon Erichsen and Bjørn Erik Haugen both work with themes such as destruction, weapons and machines. By exhibiting together, they want to emphasise and cultivate this deep abyss in their practice. Previously, they have exhibited together at Tritongatan 5 in Gothenburg and will do so again at Norske Grafikere next year.

The more our daily life appears standardised, stereotyped, and subject to an accelerated reproduction of objects of consumption, the more art must be injected into it in order to extract from it that little difference which plays simultaneously between other levels of repetition, and even in order to make the two extremes resonate—namely, the habitual series of consumption and the instinctual series of destruction and death.

– Difference and Repetition

The points of departure for Jan Hakon Erichsen’s work are aggression, black humour and slapstick. His practice consists of sculpture, installation and video art. In all projects, objects are retrieved from everyday life that are then either rebuilt or completely destroyed. Erichsen’s works have been shown at a number of galleries and festivals in Norway and abroad since he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. Lights On at the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Tomorrow People at the Elevator Gallery in London and the video festival Art Tech Media at Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Bjørn Erik Haugen has an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo and a bachelor’s degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim. He works idea-based and uses different materials, media and technologies to realise his projects. His work often touches upon the entertainment industry’s and advertising’s mechanisms of opinion formation. In 2012, one of his works was shown at Transmediale in Berlin, and he received the Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2012. One of his video works was shown at the Palais de Tokyo during Rencontres Internationales in 2013. He has exhibited at the Bristol Biennial, the biennial in Bucharest, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Høstutstillingen, WRO Art Center in Wroclaw and most recently at Vårutstillingen at Fotogalleriet in 2015.