Current
VERA WYLLER
BOSTAN CABINETS and the Lexicon of Missing Words
August 22. – September 19. 2026 in Krutthuset
Opening hours are Saturday and Sunday 14:00 – 18:00
and weekdays by appointment
Upcoming
1.618...
2026
HERMETISKE SKYGGER
SOCK & BUSKIN
Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen
Atelier Lorenzi
Marius Engh
September 5. – October 2. 2026 in Jane
Opening reception Saturday 05.09., 14:00 – 18:00 at K.O.S A
Opening hours for Jane are every day 24/7
Welcome!
Sock and Buskin
THE TEMPLAR: The cycle is a pleonasm: a wheel and the superfetation and the prolonged parallelism of the cranks. The circle, once it is finished, falls into disuse. The straight line succeeds it, extending in both directions to infinity. DON´T MAKE SUCH LEAPS AND BOUNDS, semi-cubist on both one and the other pole of your axis or of your self!
FESS: MINUS-IN-PLUS, you are the owl, the sex and Spirit, man and woman.
Alfred Jarry, Caesar-Antichrist (1894)
The words in the title of the show are traditionally used to identify the characteristics and the type of plays written and acted for the ancient Greek theatre - namely comedy and tragedy. Instead of the traditional masks they are identified by their footwear. This turns the characters in a way upside-down. Juxtaposing their head with feet.
In the pavilion “Jane” a mechanical theatre is taking place. For the show Jane is identified with a plaster death mask that becomes her figurehead. The mask is a gem brought from the fin-de-siècle artist studios and its original caster in Paris. This tragedy belongs to a drowned young woman whose face was cast for identification, but became an enigma due to her expression, a lively smile and eternally unknown identity after death. She is Jane. Jane Doe.
The mask of Charlie Chaplin is another head operating this “machine”, spinning around its own axis, showing both its outside and inside. The masks negative inside appears through an optical illusion as a monochrome positive version of the front rotating in the opposite direction. This image which only exists in the viewer, pulled out by its nose, is a ghost image, a phantasmagorical double.
What we see is 3D simulated mask, behind which lies not a face, but only another simulation, another mask, and another mask behind that mask.
In his book, “Difference and Repetition”, Gilles Deleuze writes: “The mask, the costume, the covered is everywhere the truth of the uncovered. The mask is the true subject of repetition. Because repetition differs in kind from representation, the repeated cannot be represented: rather, it must always be signified, masked by what signifies it, itself masking what it signifies.” (2)
Modern times is still modern times is still modern times and Deus is still ex machina.
A sculpture carrying the pregnant imagination of rotating planks radiating from the nave (belly button) of two geometric and painted triangular forms, dressed for acrobatics and the play of the Harlequin. The two represent opposites in equilibrium and are of equal value through a vertical and horisontal axis - the duality of the plus and minus in everything.
The idea of mechanical automation supersedes the modern era and science fiction of the 19th century. In Homer’s “Illiad” (c. 750 BC), the blacksmith god Hephaestus creates his “automaton“- mechanical operating tripods (3) and robots to serve offerings and to protect the Olympian gods. He also created humans. In Plato´s “Symposium” the comedy playwright Aristophanes tells a human creation myth. The first attempt on the human figure was in the shape of a sphere (ball) containing heads, limbs and genitals of two poking out from it. They were making somersaults as a way to move around and therefore were called acrobats or “cubists”(2). These bodies were of same sexes or androgyne. They had little to do and were rebelling against the gods and as a result Zeus cut them in half, from the middle down. This was to make sure they stayed occupied in search of the other half in the name of love instead of being in opposition to their makers. This made the humans in the shape as we know us. But if this did not make the offences come to a halt we would be cut a second time, making us jump on one foot…
We like to end this text with a quote from Walter Benjamin´s text "On the Concept of History: “There was once, we know, an automaton constructed in such a way that it could respond to every move by a chess player with a countermove that would ensure its winning of the game. A puppet wearing Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent on all sides. Actually, a hunchbacked dwarf—a master at chess—sat inside and guided the puppet’s hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophic counterpart to this apparatus. The puppet, called “historical materialism,” is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is small and ugly and has to keep out of sight.” (5)
Marius Engh
Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen
Notes:
1) Alfred Jarry, Caesar-Antichrist, Mercure de France, Paris (1894). Translation by Anthony Melville, Atlas Press, London (1992).
2) Alfred Jarry coins the word “cubiste” in French language in 1894 from the old greek words “kubistitire” (κυβιsτητηρε) and “kubistontes” (κυβιsτωντεs) being used on acrobats doing somersaults and of jumping fish, but most likely referring to Pluto’s “Symposium.” Jill Fell, “Alfred Jarry’s Alternative Cubists” (1995)
3) Gilles Deleuze, “Différence et répétition” is a book originally published in France by Presses Universitaires de France in 1968. English translation “Difference and Repetition” by Paul Patton for Colombia University Press in 1994.
4) A “tripod” is an alter which consists of a three-legged stand holding a caldron for sacrifices / offerings.
5) Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte, Suhrkamp Verlag (1940). English translation by Harry Zorn included in the collection of essays “Illuminations”, edited by Hannah Arendt and published by Harcourt, Brace & World, New York (1968)
About the Artists
Hermetiske Skygger is an artist-run initiative by Marius Engh, focusing on the historical avant-garde and the local contemporary art scene. Their intimate Oslo-based operation includes publishing, an art collection and exhibition space since 2019.
Atelier Lorenzi is an art-molding workshop founded in 1871, and is one of the few remaining large casting workshops still operating in Paris. It is today under the direction of Éric Nadeau. They have clients from museums, art schools, public institutions, as well as art collectors, who are offered to choose from among a collection of over 2,000 models.
Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen (b. 1973, Norway). In his practice, he creates methods to explore objects and signs through language, transformation, and loss. Gullaksen graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 and has recently shown his work at Kunstnernes Hus, Oppland Kunstsenter og Hermetiske skygger. Gullaksen is based in Hakadal, where he also runs the exhibition space Grrrunntaket.
Marius Engh, (b. 1974, Oslo, Norway). He is educated at the Academy of Fine Art, Oslo (1996-2000) and works with sculpture as a study in the origins of social use of form and its semiotics. The works are sifted through reduction and conceptual oriented. His works have been exhibited at home and abroad. Recent inclusions in the collections of KORO - Public Art Norway; Astrup Fearnley Collection; Stavanger Art Museum; KODE Museums, Bergen; The City of Oslo Art Collection; National Museum of Art´s permanent exhibitions and collection. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Oslo Kunstforening (2025) and Melk (2026) in Oslo.
About the gathering
On September 5th, 14:00 – 18:00, on the occasion of Hermetiske Skygger's exhibition Sock & Buskin, K.O.S A invites to a reception and an informal gathering with the artists. The event is free and open to everyone.
Kindly supported by
the Norwegian Arts Council
and
BKV
BILLEDKUNSTNERNES VEDERLAGSFOND
THE TEMPLAR: The cycle is a pleonasm: a wheel and the superfetation and the prolonged parallelism of the cranks. The circle, once it is finished, falls into disuse. The straight line succeeds it, extending in both directions to infinity. DON´T MAKE SUCH LEAPS AND BOUNDS, semi-cubist on both one and the other pole of your axis or of your self!
FESS: MINUS-IN-PLUS, you are the owl, the sex and Spirit, man and woman.
Alfred Jarry, Caesar-Antichrist (1894)
The words in the title of the show are traditionally used to identify the characteristics and the type of plays written and acted for the ancient Greek theatre - namely comedy and tragedy. Instead of the traditional masks they are identified by their footwear. This turns the characters in a way upside-down. Juxtaposing their head with feet.
In the pavilion “Jane” a mechanical theatre is taking place. For the show Jane is identified with a plaster death mask that becomes her figurehead. The mask is a gem brought from the fin-de-siècle artist studios and its original caster in Paris. This tragedy belongs to a drowned young woman whose face was cast for identification, but became an enigma due to her expression, a lively smile and eternally unknown identity after death. She is Jane. Jane Doe.
The mask of Charlie Chaplin is another head operating this “machine”, spinning around its own axis, showing both its outside and inside. The masks negative inside appears through an optical illusion as a monochrome positive version of the front rotating in the opposite direction. This image which only exists in the viewer, pulled out by its nose, is a ghost image, a phantasmagorical double.
What we see is 3D simulated mask, behind which lies not a face, but only another simulation, another mask, and another mask behind that mask.
In his book, “Difference and Repetition”, Gilles Deleuze writes: “The mask, the costume, the covered is everywhere the truth of the uncovered. The mask is the true subject of repetition. Because repetition differs in kind from representation, the repeated cannot be represented: rather, it must always be signified, masked by what signifies it, itself masking what it signifies.” (2)
Modern times is still modern times is still modern times and Deus is still ex machina.
A sculpture carrying the pregnant imagination of rotating planks radiating from the nave (belly button) of two geometric and painted triangular forms, dressed for acrobatics and the play of the Harlequin. The two represent opposites in equilibrium and are of equal value through a vertical and horisontal axis - the duality of the plus and minus in everything.
The idea of mechanical automation supersedes the modern era and science fiction of the 19th century. In Homer’s “Illiad” (c. 750 BC), the blacksmith god Hephaestus creates his “automaton“- mechanical operating tripods (3) and robots to serve offerings and to protect the Olympian gods. He also created humans. In Plato´s “Symposium” the comedy playwright Aristophanes tells a human creation myth. The first attempt on the human figure was in the shape of a sphere (ball) containing heads, limbs and genitals of two poking out from it. They were making somersaults as a way to move around and therefore were called acrobats or “cubists”(2). These bodies were of same sexes or androgyne. They had little to do and were rebelling against the gods and as a result Zeus cut them in half, from the middle down. This was to make sure they stayed occupied in search of the other half in the name of love instead of being in opposition to their makers. This made the humans in the shape as we know us. But if this did not make the offences come to a halt we would be cut a second time, making us jump on one foot…
We like to end this text with a quote from Walter Benjamin´s text "On the Concept of History: “There was once, we know, an automaton constructed in such a way that it could respond to every move by a chess player with a countermove that would ensure its winning of the game. A puppet wearing Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent on all sides. Actually, a hunchbacked dwarf—a master at chess—sat inside and guided the puppet’s hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophic counterpart to this apparatus. The puppet, called “historical materialism,” is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is small and ugly and has to keep out of sight.” (5)
Marius Engh
Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen
Notes:
1) Alfred Jarry, Caesar-Antichrist, Mercure de France, Paris (1894). Translation by Anthony Melville, Atlas Press, London (1992).
2) Alfred Jarry coins the word “cubiste” in French language in 1894 from the old greek words “kubistitire” (κυβιsτητηρε) and “kubistontes” (κυβιsτωντεs) being used on acrobats doing somersaults and of jumping fish, but most likely referring to Pluto’s “Symposium.” Jill Fell, “Alfred Jarry’s Alternative Cubists” (1995)
3) Gilles Deleuze, “Différence et répétition” is a book originally published in France by Presses Universitaires de France in 1968. English translation “Difference and Repetition” by Paul Patton for Colombia University Press in 1994.
4) A “tripod” is an alter which consists of a three-legged stand holding a caldron for sacrifices / offerings.
5) Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte, Suhrkamp Verlag (1940). English translation by Harry Zorn included in the collection of essays “Illuminations”, edited by Hannah Arendt and published by Harcourt, Brace & World, New York (1968)
About the Artists
Hermetiske Skygger is an artist-run initiative by Marius Engh, focusing on the historical avant-garde and the local contemporary art scene. Their intimate Oslo-based operation includes publishing, an art collection and exhibition space since 2019.
Atelier Lorenzi is an art-molding workshop founded in 1871, and is one of the few remaining large casting workshops still operating in Paris. It is today under the direction of Éric Nadeau. They have clients from museums, art schools, public institutions, as well as art collectors, who are offered to choose from among a collection of over 2,000 models.
Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen (b. 1973, Norway). In his practice, he creates methods to explore objects and signs through language, transformation, and loss. Gullaksen graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 and has recently shown his work at Kunstnernes Hus, Oppland Kunstsenter og Hermetiske skygger. Gullaksen is based in Hakadal, where he also runs the exhibition space Grrrunntaket.
Marius Engh, (b. 1974, Oslo, Norway). He is educated at the Academy of Fine Art, Oslo (1996-2000) and works with sculpture as a study in the origins of social use of form and its semiotics. The works are sifted through reduction and conceptual oriented. His works have been exhibited at home and abroad. Recent inclusions in the collections of KORO - Public Art Norway; Astrup Fearnley Collection; Stavanger Art Museum; KODE Museums, Bergen; The City of Oslo Art Collection; National Museum of Art´s permanent exhibitions and collection. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Oslo Kunstforening (2025) and Melk (2026) in Oslo.
About the gathering
On September 5th, 14:00 – 18:00, on the occasion of Hermetiske Skygger's exhibition Sock & Buskin, K.O.S A invites to a reception and an informal gathering with the artists. The event is free and open to everyone.
Kindly supported by
the Norwegian Arts Council
and
BKV
BILLEDKUNSTNERNES VEDERLAGSFOND
DAMLA KILICKIRAN
HOW TO MAKE AN IMAGE DISAPPEAR
Curated by Lisa Rosendahl
October 3. – October 30. 2026 in Krutthuset
