MARIUS ENGH: "Nothing in Return"
STANDARD (OSLO)
PRESS RELEASE
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MARIUS ENGH
"NOTHING IN RETURN"
27.06.-26.07.2014 / Preview: Friday 27.06.2014 / 19.00-21.00
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STANDARD (OSLO) is proud to announce a solo exhibition with three new sculptural works by Oslo-based artist Marius Engh. Entitled "Nothing in Return", Engh locates the starting point for his exhibition with Tel Megiddo in what is now northern Israel. Known for its historical and geographical importance as the leading city-state of the valley of Jezreel, the more than 26 layers of ruins unearthed by various excavations bear evidence of a long period of settlement and of an ever-recurring pattern of destruction and reconstruction - offering some explanation to the Greek name for Megiddo being Armageddon. A mere decade ago, Israeli archaeologist Yotam Tepper of Tel-Aviv University discovered the remains of a church, dating back to the third century, south of the Tel Megiddo. Among the finds was a large-scale mosaic stating in Greek that the church is consecrated to "the God Jesus Christ." It is believed to be the oldest remains of a church in the Holy Land. The remains were initially found within the grounds of the military Megiddo prison by prisoner Ramil Razilo, and Israeli authorities are currently considering moving the entire prison.
"The power of historical artefacts derives from the duality of their nature; they are both a concrete proof of an historical fact and the basis for an abstract construction of meaning."
- Peter J. Buxton: "Possessing the Past: The use and abuse of archaeology in building nation-states", Ministry of Defence, London, 2009
"Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East … The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled… This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."
- George W. Bush talking to Jacques Chirac on the telephone in early 2003
"Irrational modes of organization are gaining ground: main axes are forgotten, the most preposterous disproportions given their head, and one gets lost in the phantasmagoric density where the effort to keep one's bearings is doomed. For Piranesi, prisons are a release into freer spatial experiment, but all spaces are in some sense prisons, entered voluntarily in high anticipation of their pleasing confusions."
- Robert Harbison, "Ruins", The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable, Thames and Hudson, 1991
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This is Marius Engh's fifth solo exhibition at STANDARD (OSLO). Other recent solo exhibitions include "Eschscholzia Californica" at Emanuel Layr, Vienna; "My Target Is Your Eyes" at Galleria Gentili, Prato; and "Exhume to Consume" at Supportico Lopez, Berlin. Marius Engh's works have previously been included in exhibitions at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Santa Cruz, Tenerife; Henie Onstad Art Center, Høvik; Kunsthall Oslo, Oslo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen; and Witte de With, Rotterdam. Currently Marius Engh is contributing to the group exhibition "Decorum - Carpets and Tapestries by Modern and Contemporary Artists" (curated by Anne Dressen) at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai.
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Installation photography: Vegard Kleven
