OSV. Oslo Collected Works

What is a collection? Where does it begin and where does it end? In the art project OSV., the artists Jan Freuchen, Sigurd Tenningen and Jonas Høgli Major explore art collections and phenomena that mark our public space.

Click here for up to date information about the opening event 26th September (2020).

On 26 September 2020, OSV. expands its sculpture pavilion with a new publication and a sculpture with an integrated sound work. The title of the sculpture is Tverrsum (2020, approx. meaning 'The Addend') in concrete, bronze*, as well as integrated sound recording**

The publication, which tells about the new elements in the pavilion, is the fourth in OSV.’s pamphlet series and is available on-site and at Oslo Biennial’s headquarters at Myntgata 2. The integrated sound work has been developed in collaboration with the composer Jan Martin Smørdal.

Smørdal has collected sounds from many places in Oslo. These are combined into a composition that will play continuously – from the time the work is officially presented to the public to the time when the pavilion is eventually dismantled.

Click here to watch an interview with Smørdal out on the go on a recording session around Oslo. The new sculpture can be seen as paying homage to Il Porcellino (The Wild Boar), a copy of Pietro Tacca’s original sculpture in Florence, which until recently was featured in the sculpture pavilion. Il Porcellino has now returned to its home at Slemdal School.

In October 2019 the sculpture pavilion was expanded, but not with artworks borrowed from a collection, as was the case with the ‘first edition’ in May 2019. The October edition introduced material and infrastructural elements from various places in Oslo. It included, among other things, Horisontal monolitt (fragment) (2019), which consists of a granite curbstone, popularly called Oslo-stone, and Ormehull (2019, meaning ‘serpent hole’), which is a fragment of the cement sewer pipe Midgardsormen, the title of which alludes to the world-encompassing serpent in Old Norse mythology.

Jan Martin Smørdal, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen and Jennifer Torrence performed the work ‘Infrasticks’.

The exhibition expansion is accompanied by publication no. 8, ‘Bærekraft og sirkulasjon’ (‘Sustainability and Circulation’), which deals with connections between art and the environment, works and urban infrastructure.

OSV. Sculpture Pavilion at Økern opened on 25 May 2019 with ribbon cutting and speeches. Also marking the occasion was a specially-composed sound work by Jan Martin Smørdal. The theme for this first edition of OSV. was the collecting of animal sculpture. The pavilion presented five sculptures borrowed from the collection of Oslo Municipality: Snegl (1969, Snail) by Sivert Donali (1931–2010), a copy of Il Porcellino (The Wild Boar) by Pietro Tacca (1577–1640), Blå fugl – hommage à Tor Hoff (undated, Blue Bird – In Homage to Tor Hoff) by Jørleif Uthaug (1911–1990), Bird in Space (Erling Viksjø) (2014) by Knut Henrik Henriksen (1970–), and Rådyr med kalv (1990, Roe Deer with Calf) by Skule Waksvik (1927–2018).

For each edition of the exhibition in OSV. Sculpture Pavilion, the artists have prepared publications that are distributed on-site.

Freuchen, Høgli Major and Tenningen describe the project’s publication series thus: ‘Read together, the publications offer a complete description of the artworks in Oslo’s public space, while the pavilion itself can be seen as a public parliament or pantheon where there is at all times a condensed part – a gathering – of Oslo’s collected works.’

Click on the title below to read a digital copy of the pamphlets (this year's publication will be available on the 25th of September 2020):

OSV. library #8: Sustainability and circulation
OSV. bibliotek #3: Zoosiologi  
OSV. library #1: Collection
OSV. bibliotek #13: Den horisontale monolitt (Wedekinds oppdagelser) (#13: in Norwegian only) 

Jan Freuchen, Jonas Høgli Major and Sigurd Tenningen write about the project OSV.:

"Every collection is greater than the sum of the objects it contains. The description of the collection is also part of its scope. When it is possible to describe the works individually, it is down to the fact that the collection is already present in them. This goes for existing works, as well as for ones that have been destroyed and works that have not yet materialised. Detaching a work from the collection entails expelling it in its raw materiality. In practice that would mean the annihilation of the object, but not its identity. Since each expulsion carries with it a faint echo of the object’s origin in the collection, we cannot speak of a fallen nature. It is typical of the fetishisation of the individual work that it is supported by such expulsion fantasies. Hence the principle: ‘Not the work in the collection, but the collection in the work.’"

Cover Photo: Tor Simen Ullstein