Jonas Erboe & Morten Underbjerg
Formation Gallery
16 Aug 2024 – 28 Sep 2024
“Again! Again! Again!” Like small children on a carousel, humans seek the euphoric and find social gathering points and traditions to achieve escapism, entertainment, and the extraordinary.
Repetition is treated in different ways in the works of Jonas Erboe and Morten Underbjerg in their first joint duo exhibition at Formation Gallery. The two artists have worked side by side with their individual practices during their education at the art academy in Bergen, and after their graduation and return to Denmark this summer, their works meet again in the gallery space.
Like a string of colorful lights, Morten Underbjerg's paintings hang like bulbs in a row, inviting closer exploration into a wealth of ecstatic colors. This colorful immediacy opens up upon closer inspection, where the foundation reveals the many layers of paint that drip, run, and hint at an underlying radiant sea of life. Beneath, fleeting and dependent on light and shadows, motifs emerge, drawn and embossed with thick acrylic. Here, one encounters the clown’s smile peeking cheekily out, the bouncy shapes of a bouncy castle, the machinery of the carousel, and folk dancers spinning round and round and round again.
Inspired by the Bacchanal paintings of the 1500s and 1600s—which, based on the god Bacchus, depicted a hedonistic, ecstatic, and lavish scenario—Underbjerg draws parallels to contemporary cultural gathering points and practices, where ecstasy arises, and euphoria is given free rein. Amusement parks, as an example of this, are like the Bacchanal paintings, situated in an environment where the garden is a natural component and is simultaneously clearly separated from its surroundings, from the ordinary world. This appears as flying scrolls and ornaments from deconstructed fences in Underbjerg’s paintings, where the role of nature is also allowed to flourish in the form of bristling flowers. Within the fences, social codes and an understanding of the place's purpose reign, where everything is dedicated to letting go of inhibitions as well as provoking laughter and screams. Here, one can shout "Again, again, again!" and buy another ride for a moment of elevated experience.
Jonas Erboe’s vases are cast after the original ancient amphora, precisely the type of vase that was originally awarded at ancient athletic events, and then hugged, pushed, or otherwise influenced in a way that reflects the physicality and performative nature of Erboe's practice, where a kind of circular absurdity is exercised. Previous works include twelve performative marathons, such as running around and around again in small circles indoors in the gallery space, as a reenactment of the myth of Hercules’ twelve labors, to achieve hero status and join Zeus.
Pop culture icons such as Kanye West, Brian Laudrup, and Forrest Gump are among the characters and motifs depicted in collage on the vases. All of them reference running, whether from a song lyric, documentation from one of Erboe’s runs, or from a mythical story—all are individuals or events that have achieved a particular star status. The works are thus a reinterpretation of one of the vase’s original functions: to pass on stories and thereby elevate people to hero status. Here, the social and cultural hierarchies and structures that enable the achievement of fame, societal position, and epic character are examined. From this also springs a negotiation about truth and its significance. As derived from Søren Kierkegaard, truth is merely what we tell ourselves and each other—it’s marginal how little separates true from false, and how significant that can be in understanding ourselves and our history. For we are seduced by the extraordinary, gather around the epic, whether they are mythological heroes, pop stars, or Olympiads.
During the opening reception, Jonas Erboe will premiere the storytelling performance "Running for Office" at 6 PM.
Morten Underbjerg (b. 1993)
Graduated from Bergen Academy of Art in 2024. Underbjerg has primarily exhibited in Norway and Denmark. Among these, recent solo exhibitions include "Everything is Managed Nothing Grows Wild," MLAG, Bergen, NO, "Solstik," Galleri TAXI, Bergen, NO, and "Spectacle of Fun," Udstillingsstedet Sydhavn Station, Copenhagen, DK. Additionally, he has participated in several group exhibitions, for example, at Skjold Contemporary, Copenhagen, DK, Galleri fi4e, KODE4, Bergen, NO, and Bergen Kjøtt, Bergen, NO.
Jonas Erboe (b. 1992)
Graduated from Bergen Academy of Art in 2024 and also holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, DK. Solo exhibitions and performances include O Days Festival, Refshaleøen, DK, History Is Now, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, NO, Marathon On Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, NO, Running For Office, Narrow Creative, Bredgade, DK, There’s No Sincerity Like Irony, Rom61, Møllendalsveien, NO, Nikomen, The Panatheniac Stadium, Athens, EL, 10,000 drawings, Gallery Taxi, Bergen, NO, Walking Landscapes, Metropolis, Copenhagen, DK, Marathon in a small space, Aarhus Artspace, Aarhus, DK. Group exhibitions include SPRING24, Kunsthal Aarhus, DK, Can I Help Carry You?, Bergen Kjøtt, Bergen, NO, KP 22 - The Easter Exhibition, Kunsthal Aarhus, DK.
