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oVo
Montanasalen is temporarily closed
The artist duo oVo brings new life to the Montana Gallery with a new sculptural installation.
Montanasalen is a special concept space at GL STRAND where a changing succession of artists are invited to relate to the distinctive situation and framework of a meeting room through an artistic decoration. This time the baton is passed to the artist duo oVo, who turn the focus on the need for a sensory interface in encounters among people.
The plastic tablecloth of the meeting table encapsulates variously coloured liquids which when touched flow around among those present and form new abstract motifs. On the walls hang acrylic tablets carved in organic forms, which may be taken down and laid on the tablecloth as an underlay for the events of the meeting. On the table balances a sculptural device for a sanitising spirit dispenser, which both appears to have its own body and functions as a familiar, practical device.
The playful aspect of the tablecloth points quite specifically to the fluid connections we constantly form with one another. Together with the table sculpture it is a contemporary interpretation of the classic centrepiece, which is both a decorative element as well as intended to initiate conversations around a table. Furthermore, oVo’s choice of materials and objects can be seen as a reference to the past few years’ reality, which have meant great changes in the way we meet – in both professional as well as private contexts.
The artist duo oVo was established in 2019 by the visual artists Birk Bjørlo (b. 1986 in Norway) and Lea Guldditte Hestelund (b. 1983 in Denmark). They are both graduates from the Royal Danish Academy of Art and both have their independent artistic practices. Bjørlo works within an expanded painterly field and Guldditte Hestelund’s practice is characterised by a performative sculptural expression. With oVo they have launched a third practice that scans the points of contact between their respective modes of expression.
