01-11.11.2021

SORGENFRI / OSLO DESIGN FAIR

FUNCTIONAL ART / INNE UTE

City courtyard behind SORGENFRI transformed into an art space, while the inside is covered in vegetation. An empty courtyard usually used for litter boxes and bicycles, on the backside of multi-functional space SORGENFRI, has been transformed into a superb art place curated by Michael Laundry Art Garden, -while the normally busy area inside the gallery is covered in vegetation; showcasing functional art objects in collaboration with Oslo Design Fair.

Last year SORGENFRI hosted Oslo Design Fair’s one and only mini exhibition as an alternative to their normal program during the Pandemic. This season the collaboration has moved into more of a joint effort showing off the Norwegian design scene.

New addition to this emerging design week is MLAG, Michael Laundry Art Garden. MLAG is a green-design platform for urban gardening, education and contemporary art based out of Bergen, Norway. Curating artists all over the country, popping up in different outdoors areas, this is MLAG’s first exhibition in Oslo. The mobile, outdoor gallery space will pop up this week in the courtyard behind SORGENFRI.

With this multi-faced collaboration, the aim is to create a feeling of inside out and vice versa, playing with our ideas and our understanding of a space, its environment and its purpose. Further asking questions like if, how and when a design object becomes art; - and who is the one to decide? Explore the work of a total of 27 artists who have brought their artistic work into the realm of functionality / designers who made such remarkable designs that their work has become art.

The courtyard, formerly inaccessible to the public, has been incorporated into the installations that will take place, and becomes a glazed art garden where the honey-coloured original wall painting and terracotta brickwork has been incorporated into the art works.

In addition to two floors of space inside giving a surrealistic feel of vegetation and admirable crafts, the outside area in front of the gallery, normally an addition to SORGENFRI’s wine bar, have also been overhauled to provide an object of sculptural seating; a huge Larvikite stone bench tailored made by in-house artist Kaja Dahl.

Part of SORGENFRI’s plan is to offer a more flexible art environment, which was started in November 2019, inviting artists from all over the country to showcase their work within a varied media.