Siri Aurdal

The largest and first solo exhibition of Norwegian sculptor Siri Aurdal since 1980, Continuum at the Malmö Konsthall presents Aurdal’s breathtaking work in a long overdue tribute to this visionary artist.

After a decades-long hiatus, Aurdal reemerged to great fanfare during the 57th Venice Biennale when her Onda Volante ("Flying Wave") was exhibited at the 2017 Nordic Pavilion. This monumental work of graceful, looping forms is made from reinforced, fiberglass-coated, polyester tubes intended for use in the Norwegian oil industry. With the tubes, Aurdal is able to explore her interest in modular sculptural systems. 

Aurdal is known for her interest in industrial materials, drawn to them because of the engineering possibilities they afford—strength, flexibility and lightness. But she also clearly revels in and is aware of the power of taking something humble and unpretentious and imbuing it with beauty and grace.

The two other pieces, Interview (1968/2018) and Conversation (2018) are hung together suggesting a fluidity inherent in the show’s title. The sheets of colored Plexiglas that comprise them are cut into different shapes that are suspended from the ceiling. One can walk amongst them in a kind of kaleidoscopic maze of color. As you move through, colors (red, green, and pink for the former; deep blue, light blue, and orange for the latter) and figures overlap creating new forms and hues. 

It was very interesting seeing this show hot on the heels of the exhibition on Katarzyna Kobro at the Moderna Museet, Malmö. I thought at first it must be intentional, but I never saw anything linking the two women.The connection between the two seems pretty clear. According to the accompanying literature, Aurdal, like Kobro was interested in the relationship of art to architecture as well as its social context. But more striking was something I could see with my own eyes: how their sculptures occupy and interact with space. They don’t sit within it like separate masses, but actively engage with it. Above and beyond this, the two women share an artistic courage and unwavering determination to create art on their own terms in a field of men. 

Aurdal took her sculpture to a much larger scale—she was part of a generation that did this—but, as a woman, it took a certain uncompromising bravery to be so bold. Because let’s face it, especially in the 1960s (the date of the original iterations of this work), monumentality was considered the province of men. Aurdal deftly co-ops it, while managing to hold onto her female identity. You look at these pieces and know they could only have been done by a woman.

One hopes from the title of the exhibition, Continuum, that what we see here—the brilliance of the past and present work—will carry on into the future and more will be forthcoming from Aurdal.