Erotics of Tomorrow

Erotics of Tomorrow aims to entertain possibilities of infinite delay and secrecy, as if to intensify the aesthetic impulses and keep the play of imagination in motion, still unresolved. The exhibition title comes from a combination of the sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow and the American art critic Susan Sontag’s call for “an erotics of art” in her essay Against Interpretation. In the movie the protagonist, played by Tom Cruise, has the experience of starting the same day over and over, every time dying in a war against extraterrestrials. With each repetition he learns something new and can delay his own death and the apocalypse a bit longer, in a fight that seems to be without end. In Sontag’s text, she calls for perception, to be open for the art work on its own terms, warning of a hermeneutical, textual and habit-driven understanding of art. To eroticize a future holds the aspect of something unknown, secret, something that eludes clear and finished images, as the future always slips away.

Axel Ekwall, Jørund Aase Falkenberg, and Tommy Johansson live and work in Oslo. The exhibition focuses on the artists’ approach to various materials and their often slow, time consuming, ritualistic and cryptic working procedures. Exhibited works include bacteria-grown canvases, oil painting, sculptural works of wood and thermoplastic glue, works on paper and more.

Axel Ekwall (b.1955) works mainly with wood relation to painting, sculpture and installation. He was part of the Norwegian artist group Lambretta during the eighties.

Jørund Aase Falkenberg (b.1978) makes use of processes found in nature, or that are ‘analogue’ as such. With various materials and medias he is investigating principles of both growth and decay.

Tommy Johansson (b.1975) works with painting or painting oriented tropes, exploring the close relations between the medium and the senses, language and desire.