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CHRISTINE ISTAD ART PHOTO 2014 - 2020

DELIRIOUS METROPOL Karin Sunderø, ar t historian and curator, 2020

A New Nature We are all familiar with the term nostalgia. But perhaps less with the newer term “solastalgia”. A word “invented” by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe ecological sorrow. A melancholia felt strongly by many of us; a “homesickness” for lost landscapes and species, in an area where human civilization characterizes the environment to the extent that clear geological traces are deposited on earth. Through photographic studies, Christine Istad highlights details in modern architecture, in photographs referring to the real time and place in which they were taken. The motifs appear abstract and dissolved, although many of her most recent works are more organic in form than her previous. None the less, trough her detailed focus on optical effects, reflections of light and rhythms, Istad creates images of new forms of landscapes; ar tificial spaces. Identity, relationship between people, society and modern, high speed cities are topics that concern the ar tist. Her close-up studies of towering architecture and densely packed urbanity reveal both her interest in a loss of nature and mankind’s capacity to adapt to alienation and find small ‘pockets’ for physical and psychological space. The result is reminiscent of a principle of cultural anthropology, where the main question is what happens to inherited traditions and fundamental values when technology and efficiency become the defining powers in our lives? How is the balance between man and nature, and nature within man, maintained when the individual is increasingly defined as a “mechanical figure”? Istad’s works focus on contrasts found in our most modern and innovative metropolises, where tradition and technology are thrown into sharp relief. Her photo series are stunningly beautiful and plays with the viewers perception. What do we see? Is it the in- or outside of a building? Is it the building itself or reflections of buildings in its proximity? Istad offers no answers. Instead she asks: How do we keep our identity and humanity in a world perceived as façades and reflections?

Dissolved Rodeo Dr. LA #01, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved Rodeo Dr. LA #03, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved Rodeo Dr. LA #02, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved Hamburg #01, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved OSL #03, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

OSL duo #01,100x240 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved San Fransisco #01, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

OSL duo #02, 100x240 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved Pantheon #01, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved Tr.Heim #01, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

Dissolved Tokyo #01, 70x100 cm or 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2020

â€œThe Metropolis strives to reach a mythical point where the world is completely fabricated by man, so that it absolutely coincides with his desires. The Metropolis is an addictive machine, from which there is no escape, unless it offers that, too....

Rem Koolhaas

VERTICAL CIT Y Text: Benedicte Sunde, art historian, 2018

Chicago, New York, Miami, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Oslo, Hamburg, London, Berlin, Hiroshima, Gothenburg and Bethlehem (US). What do they all have in common? They are all major cities. And also, the subject for Christine Istad’s exploratory photographic works.

reflective exterior. The empty table with the white cloth exemplifies what Roland Bar thes would have referred to as the “punctum” of the photograph – the subjective experience. It moves me and makes me reflect upon the existential anxiety and emptiness of the big city.

There are several criteria that need to be met in order for a city to qualify as a metropolis. Such as infrastructure, comprehensive architecture, number of inhabitants and international recognition. One of the first metropolises, or major cities, of the world is New York. In his book Delirious New York, a Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan from 1978, the architect Rem Koolhaas describes the development of Manhattan from the 1880s and throughout the 20th century. In his book he refers to New York as the Rosetta-stone of our century, a think tank or laboratory for architects and the utopian ideas of the ar tist. He depicts the skyscrapers of Central Park as architectonical mutations, the Rockefeller Center and the United Nations buildings as utopian fragments, and Radio City Music Hall as an irrational phenomenon . For many, New York and Chicago are perceived as the place of origin for the construction and development of skyscrapers; the ver tical city. Throughout the 20th century there was a global development in the construction of skyscrapers, and most major cities followed the American model. In Oslo, we now have our own skyline; Bar Code. Bar Code was finalized in 2017, seventeen years after the City Council decided upon its creation. These towering constructions carry the ability to astonish, fascinate and yet, to this day, agitate. In Istad’s work the titles function as a reference, an indicator, to a specific site or place. As we become aware of these titles they have the ability to relocate us, and we begin to recognize the outlines of the metropolises she has captured.

In the windows we can see reflections of “the other life” outside. Movement and flowing cascades of water are mirrored within the strict grid composition. Nuances of cyan, silver and green paired with reflecting lights break the monotony and illustrates Istad’s painterly influence to the work. Volatile fragments of memory conjure images like The Great Wave of Kanagawa and Fuji seen through the Mannen bridge at Fukagawa by Hokusai. These strict rules for structure are mirrored in Istad’s choice of framing. Great forces are at work outside the windows. This, in interaction with the architecture embodies Merlau Ponty’s terms of “being” and “mediation”. As we encounter Istad’s photographs we engage our sensory abilities . ”City Life”

In her ar tistic practice, Christine Istad is continually drawn towards architecture and the expression of urban life. Curiosity, longing and a continued fascination for construction is what drives her. One can also detect an underlying desire to better understand the intricate relationship between man and architecture. Site-specific architecture, with all its elements, interacting with the complexity of urban life – and the picturesque qualities which it embodies are all aspects Istad explores. In her work New York #10 from 2016 there is a sensory interaction of what we see and what we perceive. The architecture, the rhythmic repetition of the windows distributed within the golden section, and the cur tains on the inside all emphasise the ver tical composition. A table covered by a white cloth is situated in the bottom corner of the frame. These components become a manifestation of what life is like on the inside of the building, behind the

Intuitive and contemplative are terms that can be used to identify the oeuvre of Christine Istad. Her curiosity is what drives her nomadic lifestyle where elements, or more precisely places, and the urban life is examined. Not all architecture or urban life is necessarily experienced as meaningful. The composition City life by Steve Reich was written as a response to the overwhelming sound pollution in New York City in the 1990s. In an interview with The Guardian, Reich explains the motivation for the piece. He experienced that the city was polluted by sound and therefore tried to compose a musical translation of the chaos. Something that he could actually bear listening to . In Istad’s work she examines the downside of urban life and the effect that architecture and city planning has on the individual. An expression of this can be seen in her video work Hong Kong-Wan Chai from 2014. In a small green park, in the midst of the chaotic traffic, a man is practicing Tai Chi. Undaunted, a woman walks back and for th engrossed in a phone call. They are both displaying an impressive ability to totally distance themselves from the noise and chaos – completely immerged in their own activities. This illustrates the adaptability of humans – an expression of an ability to see possibilities within the struggle in the crowded city of Hong Kong. Istad captures these situations with her camera. The ongoing dialogue between urban life and Istad’s photographs can be paralleled to Reich´s musical transformation of noise in the city.

Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, 1978, The Monacelli Press, Inc, New York, Reprinted 1994 by Monacelli Press, s. 293, Ibid s. 9

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/26/steve-reich-interview-carnegie-hall-composer 26. Oktober 2016 / Steve Reich, City Life, 1995 Steve Reich, from the note sheet for the composition Piano Phase from 1967, https://youtu.be/7P_9hDzG1i0 Dean Fleming, Tamara Melcher, David Novros, Edwin Ruda, Leo Valledor, Mark de Suvero, Peter Forakis, Robert Grosvenor, Anthony Magar and Forrest Myers started the Park Place Gallery. All of them, painters and sculptors, with a shared interest for art in the extended field, experimental art, music and performance. The gallery was shut down in 1967. However, in later years there has been a lot of interest for the gallery’s history and work. http://www.artnet.com/galleries/david-richard-gallery/park-place-gallery-founders-and-friends-then-and-now/

and made way for minimalism in music. In several of her exhibitions Istad has collaborated with different musicians . However, there are other commonalities between her work and Reich’s that I wish to emphasize; the pursuit of repetition, variation, discrepancies, harmony, phases and framing. Steve Reich is the urban musician, sampling sounds from his environment in New York. The expression of the city is imprinted in his musical compositions. He paints a landscape. In doing this he has also been compared to architects and landscape architects . Istad’s technique bears a resemblance to Reich´s sampling. She gathers reflections to construct structures, layering the images of buildings within each other. In her process she does not only compose with visual sampling and the reflection of structures, but also with a palette of colour that gives the photographs a painterly quality. This is evident in works like Chicago #4, Chicago #6, Chicago #10 from 2017, where the palette is both aesthetic and sophisticated. Patsy Krebs, No title, 1964, acrylic on canvas/ Krebs, Tunisia, 1966, gouache on paper. Christine Istad, New York, #05, photo,100x150 cm, brushed aluminium 2017.

Repeat each bar approximately number of times written In 1963 the Park Place Gallery opened in Soho, Manhattan . It star ted out as an ar tist community and became a centre for exploratory and experimental ar t. From this, new directions like minimalism and Op-Ar t arose. The ar tist would explore theories of spatiality, founded on Einstein´s theory of relativity, mysticism and philosophical perspectives. During the 1960s guest ar tists like Sol LeWitt, Rober t Smithson, Eva Hesse, Carl Andre, Patsy Krebs, Linda Fleming and Steve Reich would all, in the early days of their career, be invited to the Park Place Gallery. In later years, both Patsy Krebs and Linda Fleming have received renewed attention through a series of exhibitions. In 1964 Krebs and Fleming travelled to Greece and nor thern Africa. They both documented their journey with drawings and titled their work after the places they visited. It is tempting to see Istad’s work as an extension of Krebs early studies, exploring space, depth and colour. There is also a parallel in the use of place names as titles, the site-specific and the investigation of pattern and colour combinations. Another event during the 1960s was the premiere of Steve Reich’s acclaimed minimalist piece Piano Phase at the Park Place Gallery. The composition, written for two pianos, consists of repetition and gradient shifts, also referred to as 12-tone phases. The pianists star t off simultaneously, playing in loops. After a while one of them picks up the pace. This creates different phases and patterns in the composition. With this piece Reich changed the course of music history

In 2018 Istad has been exploring fragmentation in her series Dissolved. In this series the colour scheme connects with the prismatic architecture. We are aware of the surroundings mirrored in the reflections, but it’s the colour palette, in dialogue with the prisms, that conjures the sampling, repetition and phases of Reich. In composing a photograph Istad makes a calculated choice. She considers the time of day in relation to the effect of the light to get the reflections she is searching for. The photographs with their intricate patterns, created by architecture, reflections and colours, consume the spectator. They appear like mirages; seductive and alluring. In her photographic work, Istad has refined a distinct idiom and expression that both astonishes and captivates. The fact that the work has not been manipulated makes them even more enigmatic. Istad herself has said that she works intuitively, but as a constructor of images she also obser ves and examines. To conclude, there is nothing more fitting than this quote by Agnes Mar tin, “What we make is what we feel.”

In 2005 Erik Wøllo and Istad collaborated on a sound installation. The installation was based on recordings from the elevator at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. The recordings, processed by Wøllo, constructed the sound installation that accompanied Istad´s photographs. Under the construction of the 9/11 memorial Reich composed the piece WTC 9/11. The composition was performed at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In his introduction Dean Mohsen Mostafavi said the following; “The people who work in this building deal with works of the imagination,” “There’s a parallelism in the way Steve works — the combination of voice and music, the relationship to ambient sound, questions of duration and time — with the way architects and landscape architects think about the patterns of life and the acts of a building.” https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/04/the-unheard-melodies-of-speech/

Dissolved Japan #01, 200x120 cm, photo digital print, 2019.

Dissolved Japan #03, 200x120 cm, photo digital print, 2019

Dissolved Malmรถ #03, 100x70 cm, photo digital print 2018

Dissolved Oeiras #01, 100x70 cm, photo digital print 2018

SK YLIFE Text by Mette Irene Dahl, art historian. 2017

Photography as an art form is many things. It can be documentary, social commentary, it can be studies of nature, portraiture and…poetry. Ever since camera’s early days, photography has been seen as a mechanical recording device: at an early meeting of the Photographic Society of London, which was established in 1853, one member complained that this new technique was «too literal» to «elevate the imagination» and therefore could not compete with art. It is, however, today generally accepted that photography is also an art form and can be and often is more than just a recording of the physical world. But can it be painting? Can it rival painting in any form? Christine Istad’s large photographs printed on aluminum certainly can. She uses her camera to search for shapes, forms, colors and patterns. She uses her eye and her camera, that mechanical recording device, to capture the repeating patterns and subtle colors of modern urban architecture. She captures and contrasts the fleeting movement of feathery clouds against the hard angular surfaces of glass and steel and suggests the power of Nature by portraying these elusive clouds’ dissolving of a man made structure. She catches the rippling play of water within the rigid repetitive lines of modern window panes. She por traits broken columns of lights, hinting at water mirrored perhaps on a concrete floor. Norwegian artists have since the early 1800’s painted Nature and examined natural lights and the continually changing weather. Christine joins generations of artists in her venture, but she uses her camera instead of brushes and paint. The impressionists painted the light. Christine photographs it. She brings her art into our age by fusing urban high tech symbols with nature elements. Every picture is a piece of poetry that plays with light, water, waves and clouds against man made materials and structures. The organic and the soft, the rural, melts together with the urban technological achievements of modern architecture. She uses the buildings’ own lines to draw up patterns that borders on the abstract and her choice of aluminum canvases add a tactile and almost sensual aspect to her pictures that can rival the viewer’s impression of traditional paintings with their paint layers and brush strokes. Christine’s pictures are both photographs and paintings in appearance, both abstract and figurative in form, both traditional and modern in expression.

Chicago #01, 100x150 cm, photo digital print, 2017

Chicago #02, 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2017

Chicago #04, 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2017

Miami #01, 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2017

New York #05, 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2017

Chicago #06, 100x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2017

Chicago #10, 107x255 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2017

New York #10, 107x255 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2016

A PICTURE OPENS UP Text: Elise Schonhowd, artist

About art photo New York #10, 2016

When a picture takes shape, and becomes a new work of art, it involves both processes the artist was conscious of already and others that are discovered along the way. Those who encounter the piece for the first time when it is displayed on a wall, experience the same thing. Capturing a moment in time on camera is the point of departure for something that does more than merely reflect the subject of the picture, in this case a modern building. The motif may have presented itself, so to speak, if one ventures to personalise the processes on both ends a bit. A series of events occurs when a motif catches someone’s attention, first the photographer’s and then later, after many stages, the attention of people who visit the gallery. The image is seen from a distance, large. The bottom part gleams. The vibrant surface of the brushed aluminium is infused with a quality that could initially perhaps be described as slightly dry denim. A moving level appears and draws the audience closer in a natural manner. The picture follows the observer’s movements as the light changes. It hangs there on the wall, narrow and elegant, and gives an immediate impression of orderly structure. Some may perceive it as totally abstract. You see lines, you see vertical surfaces, repeating sections and perhaps the experience at this point triggers associations to minimalistic music. This is because of the repetition. Or because? Why because? Does using the word mean that you subsequently discover you have only seen a tiny portion, because there is also a lot to be seen within the surface? A closer look reveals a vibrant exchange, a meeting between the material at the bottom and the fluid-looking pattern above. At this point the experience can be almost confusing, because even though the eye picks up on the first thing that is at odds with the solidity of the architecture – it takes a while before you realise that you what you are seeing is the water’s reflection in the windows – none of the windows are alike. You can spend a brief eternity observing and taking pleasure in the many variations. And then you may find yourself feeling like everything is a wave, a flow, and experience that physically. There is something that goes beyond what can be seen by the eye. The floor blurs. The experiences linked to body, water and time evoke memories of the artist Bill Viola’s work: films which are played so slowly that the water turns to time, and bodies appear to encompass a light most easily imagined in the air.

Now the picture on the wall is slowly beginning to reveal itself…. It moves in two directions at the same time. In towards the observer and farther into the picture, further into the building along with the moving light that is reflected by the water. We are in a big city, but right now the water, the natural element, is dominant. The picture is speaking a language the body senses, and perceives as timeless from the moment when it moves from the cold architecture to the living inner core where the people are. The sky is in the water. The wind is in the water. The boats sailing past evoke images we recognise. Suddenly, it is not a picture we are looking at, but something we remember. Our eye is caught by how everything is flooded by brilliant morning light that makes it all stand out clearly. This aspect of the experience reveals new details all over the picture. Something soft breaks up the rigid sections. We realise that it is textiles and then see with increasing clarity they are curtains in what now turns out to be a hotel with stories to tell about lives that are lived in parallel with ours. Rooms without permanent inhabitants, box-like shelters that witness many aspects of the lives that unfold in the hours and days the rooms are occupied by people - either alone or with someone. Getting away from home, withdrawing from something discomforting, exposure in anonymous surroundings, expectations of the many things the city has to offer, or sheer weariness from the hustle and bustle of a hectic working life are some of the reasons why people stay in the rooms for a little while. The curtain opens up the picture for the observer. The multitude of different stories that are given a voice, can come as a surprise after one has gotten used to a relaxed visual experience. Suddenly there is a little change of pace, because the curtain that partially hides a bed, draws our thoughts towards night. Towards the body. Towards human skin. It stands there – unmade. Someone will come. Someone will clean and tidy. But here are the traces of the person that lay there. Alone or together with someone. And that is when you may feel that you have seen this before in other places at other times. Maybe you will think of the old masters, like the painter, Giotto, whose works behind and above the altar in church may have been your first meeting with art. You remember seeing the images at the bottom that generally illustrate everyday life, lives and stories that are distant from the tranquil repose promised by the light in the upper portions of the murals. So, you stand there, experiencing the inner depths and the surface at the same time. With skin. And light on smooth shining surfaces. That is when you feel that the picture has just barely begun to reveal itself.

INTERCONNECTIONS Text: Sarah Walko, curator and artist 2016

Christine Istad uses the camera to extract patterns and elemental structures from her surroundings. The photographs printed on large format on brushed aluminum are indepth studies of small fragments of reality. In her work she is striving for a sense of interconnection; how things relate to each other and how they fit together. She focuses on architectural structures, however the architecture is often only sensed and she pulls out the abstraction from the concrete forms. In her process she is interested in discovering, the discover y of a motif or something surprising or notewor thy in the surroundings. Her photographs are never manipulated; they are taken as they are seen. Istad’s broader focus is on the relationship between humans and modern society. Franz Kafka wrote about what many have termed “modern man’s cosmic predicament”, the struggle of the individual within cities during his time. Istad’s work elicits a similar investigation with the themes of finding beauty and space for contemplation within alienation and searching for a place and transformation within present day architectures and super cities. She presents these slivers of space in a way that evokes an element of surprise and in doing so creates a perceptual shift ushering in a recognition that things, in fact, are not exactly as they seem and solid, stable structures can be windows into new narratives and new spaces.

Ground (0), New York #01, 80x120 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2016

Extroversion 200x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum 2016

Introversion 200x150 cm, photo on brushed aluminum 2016

MADE IN HONG KONG Janicke Iversen, art historian. 2014

This exhibition presents Christine Istad’s latest photographs and video works, which all derive from her long study trip to Hong Kong this year. The themes of the works focus on the contrasts currently found in some of Asia’s most modern and innovative metropolises, where tradition and technology are thrown into sharp relief. Istad’s close-up photographic studies of Hong Kong’s towering architecture and densely packed urbanity implicitly reveal her interest in investigating mankind’s capacity to confront and adapt to alienation. What happens to inherited traditions and fundamental values when high technology and efficiency become the defining powers in our lives? And how is the balance between man and nature maintained when the individual is increasingly defined as a “mechanical figure”? The contrasts between modern trends and traditions are also reflected in Istad’s choice of technique. While the photographs refer to momentary incidents occurring in hypermodern and hectic city life, several of the video works are a harmonious counterbalance to this by depicting for example Tai Chi concentration exercises, symbolising the close contact between body and mind. The exhibition comprises eight large-format C-print* photographs on aluminium and three new video works. Both the photographs and the video works are analogue and refer to the real time and place in which they were taken. The motifs are not manipulated, yet appear abstract in form due to their detailed sections and optical effects.

*Colour photographic print which has at least three emulsion layers of light-sensitive silver salts.

Hong Kong #09, 100x150 cm, C-print on photographic Fuji photo paper, 2014

Hong Kong #10, 70x100 cm, C-print on photographic Fuji photo paper, 2014

Hong Kong #01, 70x100 cm, C-print on photographic Fuji photo paper, 2014

Hong Kong View, 52x240 cm, photo on brushed aluminum, 2014

Hong Kong #15, 100x150 cm, C-print on photographic Fuji photo paper, 2014

Hong Kong #04, 100x150 cm, C-print on photographic Fuji photo paper, 2014

CHRISTINE ISTAD Norwegian ar tist Christine Istad, born 1963, is educated at Strykejernet School of Ar t, Westerdals School of Communication and Parsons School of Design in New York. Her main tools of expression are photography, video ar t and installations. Istad has par ticipated in solo and group exhibitions in both Norway and abroad, at venues like KUBE Ar t Museum, Henie Onstad Ar t Centre, Bergen Ar t Hall, Tromsø Ar t Hall, Baerum Ar t Hall, Marres Maastricht, Zoellner Ar t Centre, PA and Louisiana Ar t& Science Museum, USA, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Fundación D. Luís I, Por tugal. Istad has also par ticipated at different regional exhibitions and her works are purchased by among others - KUBE Ar t Museum and LUAG Collection, PA USA, the Prime Minister´s Office, the Ministr y of Education, University of Oslo, St. Olavs Hospital, the Municipality of Bærum Ar t Collections, Gjensidige Insurance, The Norwegian Central Securities Depositor y and The REC Group. Istad has received a series of grants and ar tist suppor ts from the government of Norway as well as private funding’s. One of her major installation projects is “Traveling Sun”, a joint ar t project made by her and Pacini Ar t Lab between 2012 and 2016. The illuminated “sun” travelled around the nor thern latitudes on a trailer and was placed at different spots as reminder of brighter times, during the dark winter months of nor thern Norway. The “sun” has now found a permanent home. Mounted on the façade of the National Librar y of Norway in Mo i Rana, where it literally sheds light on the institution that manages Norway’s literar y cultural heritage. Istad´s video works has been screened at several ar t institutions and festivals in many countries from 1998-2020. She was ar tist in residence in Rome in 2017 at Circolo Scandinavo. Par ticipated at Cosmoscow 2018 with Sunderø Ar t Galler y. Several study trips to USA and Japan. Galleries representing Istad: Galleri Semmingsen. Oslo. Norway. www.gallerisemmingsen.no Sundero Galler y. Norway. www.sundero-galler y.com Ar t photo: edition of five ex. and one ar tist copy. Istad lives and works near Oslo, Norway Njords vei 6, 1344 Haslum, Norway Cell: +47 924 11 863 mail@christine-istad.no Ar tist web page: www.christine-istad.no Ar tist video works: www.vimeo.com/user5233097 Traveling SUN: www.ar tubear t.blogspot.com 66