Norwegian artist Marte Eknaes and American developer OA Biddle
celebrate the successful merger of architecture and art. It is
at the moment of this handshake that the deal is sealed- art,
as Hans Haacke once pointed out, is the social lubricant of the
business world. The pair is in disagreement on the meaning of
the finished public sculpture, but does meaning matter if the
finished product is agreeable enough? Plausibility and digestibility
are the tools by which art is apprehended and, more importantly,
sold.
There is clarity, but at no point are we sure about what this
clarity is revealing. Public art serves as the source of a false
populism to help mask the intense exclusion of the corporate field.
(At this point there is a mistranslation between the Norwegian
and English meanings of the term populist- in Norwegian it seems
to mean something like right wing pandering. The word Folkelig
– in the spirit of the people- is equivalent to the English
notion of populism,) The artist/ developer duo set out to master
this sleight of hand.
The scenario for the collaboration is that the artist was thrilled
to be contacted while abroad by an American client, inviting her
to create a festive piece to decorate the atrium of the food court
of a corporate ‘campus’. Sadly, the artist was somewhat
disappointed with the site of intervention, which turned out to
be a salad/ baked potato bar adjacent to the copy machines. The
offices were in a weird state of turmoil, with several levels
of management reenacting scenes from the 1987 war fantasy Red
Dawn between the cubicles. When she met with the developer to
express her concern over the mercenary atmosphere of the office
park, she was told not to worry, and that her art had in fact
been interpreted by the clients to be symbolic of Norse dominance
of ancient times. The artist decided that it was noble to utilize
this contemporary reading of her history to inspire the business
community to strive for excellence in their transactions.
See our online forum that
features a conversation between O.A. BIDDLE and MARTE EKNAES about
this work.
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