Conceptions

ULF NILSEN

New paintings and drawings

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CONCEPTIONS

Mental Constructions

INVISIBLE CITIES

By Selene Wendt

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities has long been a source of inspiration for Ulf Nilsen, and provides valuable insight into Nilsen’s particular form of expression. When we consider many of the parallels with Calvino’s work, the multiple meanings of various symbols emerge even more clearly. Invisible Cities is the story of Marco Polo who recounts to Kublai Khan about the many cities he has travelled during his voyages, cities that don’t actually exist in reallity – only in the narrator’s imagination. All the descriptions are of Venice, depicted in infinite different ways.

Italo Calvino’s strong use of symbolism is also reflected in Nilsen’s paintings. It is interesting to read what Calvino writes about the power of symbols one cannot forget or make mistake of once they have been seen, as with the symbols that characterise Nilsen’s work year after year. It bears relevance when Calvino writes: ”The day I understand all symbols, will I finally succeed in being master of my domain?”

For Nilsen, the symbols in his work are indicative of the questions that follow him through life, which therefore recur as an integral part of his work. The work reflects a search for identity through the visualisation of an inner struggle. As long as there are unanswered questions the symbols will remain elusive. At one point in the story Kublai Khan asks: ”Is what you see always behind you?” Here Calvino points out that people has a tendency to seek out the past – the past that has evolved to dream, or parts of an earlier dream. The boundaries between dream and reality are wiped out completely as dreams are influenced by reality and reality is influenced by dreams.

Conceptions I 2012, Oil on canvas, 200 x 225 cm

For The Storytellers, Ulf Nilsen Chose to create the site-specific mixed-media installation Conceptions, 2012, picking up the golden threadof Calvino’s story and weaving it into a visual narrative that is paradoxically as subtle as it is powerful. While the visual play between text and image has dominated much of Ulf Nilsen’s earlier work, this new work is a story without words. After years of being inspired by Italo Calvino, as expressed in richly symbolic paintings with direct references to the actual text, Nilsen has arrived at a place that is as strangely familiar as it is foreign. Questions that have interested Nilsen along the way still float in the air with the insistence of something that is immediately recognisable yet somehow impossible to grasp for more than a fleeting moment. (Having followed Nilsen1s career over many years, I know this place intimately, this is the world of Italo Calvino as interpreted by Nilsen, and yet this is a new place even for me.)

Words have all but disappeared into the inner recesses of my mind, giving way to an even more complex and surreal interpretation of Ivo Calvino, one that really embodies the true essence of Calvino on every level. The familiar components of Nilsen’s work are all still there: the dichotomy between opposing worlds; a sense of travelling in circles in a quest of meaning; fragments of time – past, present and future all mingled into one; memories of tomorrow; silence so load it could wake you from your dreams; a feeling of vulnerability; a sense of of an eternal push and pull; dreamlike cityscapes that defy the imagination yet are convincingly real, that is, until the moment when the reality disappears right before your eyes.

As with each new reading of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, in looking at Ulf Nilsen’s work for The Storytellers, we find ourselves surrounded by poetic invisibility. This is not something we can necessarily understand; we are intended to feel, experience and sense. This place is as linked to Nilsen’s imagination as it is to Calvino’s imagination; it is a magical place that emphasizes that reality is created in our own minds, as affected by time, memory, experience, and a search for existential meaning.

Installation view from my studio

Study for Conceptions 2012, I, II Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, III, IV Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, V, VI Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Installation view from my studio

Study for Conceptions 2012, VII Charcoal on paper, 100 x 50 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, VIII Charcoal on paper, 100 x 50 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, IX, X Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Conceptions II 2012, Oil on canvas, 200 x 225 cm

Installation view from my studio

Study for Conceptions 2012, XI, XII Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, XIII, XIV Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, XV, XVI Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Study for Conceptions 2012, XVII, XVIII Charcoal on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Installation view from my studio

CONCEPTIONS Notes from a conversation between UN and KB Creation, and Destruction/Decay: both Nature and our whole human world are in suspense between these two, mutually-dependent, primal processes. Together they constitute Reality; but a reality too vast for our brains ever to apprehend as one unific concept. Instead we split Creation, and tend to let our thoughts take shape within the context of one or the other of these two inseparable, yet opposed perceptions.

Ulf Nilsen’s project both illustrates and enacts the processes involved: this ultimate ground of all our thinking (and story-telling.). The two big panels here could be seen as representing the opposing points of departure, ?positive and ?negative, for the endlessly variable – and quite often seemingly irrelevant -- conceptions to which these mental journeys lead us. The surrounding smaller images might be taken for a selection of such conclusions, in all their irrationality and wasteful profusion. But there is no ‘message’ or lesson being preached here; if anything it is an artist’s reflection on the slipperiness of perception.

Notater fra en samtale mellom UN og KB Det Skapende. Det Nedbrytende. Både Naturen og den menneskelige verden eksisterer i spenningen mellom disse to motstridende, men gjensidig avhengige kreftene. Virkeligheten består av samspillet mellom dem, men det er en Virkelighet for stor for oss til helt å fatte. I stedet splitter vi Skapelsen – Universet – og har en tendens til å la våre tanker formes innenfor konteksten av bare en av disse to motstridende, uadskillelige begrepene.

Ulf Nilsens prosjekt kan ses som en konkretisering av dette: basisen for alle våre tanker (og fortellinger). De to største maleriene kan ses som representasjoner av de to motstridende utgangspunkter ?positiv og ?negativ, for de uendelig varierende – og ofte tilsynelatende irrelevante - idéer eller konsepter som våre tanker da fører oss til. De mindre bildene som omkranser de to største kunne tolkes som frukten av denne mentale prosessen. Men her er det ikke noe spesifikt budskap: bare en kunstners refleksjoner over oppfatningsevnens grenseløse fleksibilitet.

Creativity --the positive— is represented by the great factory, with its slimly graceful and excitingly high smoke-stack, the inscription on its walls proclaiming it to be producing a ‘natural’ product. To the right we see a piece of true nature being destroyed to supply (presumably) the raw materials for this ‘natural’ product.

On the facing wall the other, ‘negative’ main panel offers something subtler, less clear-cut. Here some of the ‘spin-off’ images have the arresting quality of the transient but visually striking effects that can occur when something – manmade or natural – is in the process of disintegration or collapse.

‘Conceptions,’ as the word is used here, are something to which the brain gives birth. Sometimes these creations push their way out into the real, external material world, generally in some imperfect form. More often they remain lodged in the mind of the thinker or are transmitted to other minds.

Det Skapende – det Positive – er her representert av den store fabrikken med sin spennende høye og elegante skorstein, og et stort skilt som proklamerer at bedriften produserer et ”natural” produkt. Til høyre ser vi et stykke ekte natur – grunnfjell – som rives opp, antakelig for å forsyne fabrikken med råvarer for naturproduktet.

På den motsatte veggen finner vi Det Skapendes motpol: Det Nedbrytende, et mindre entydig, kanskje mer subtilt verk.

Her kan noen av ”kransen” av mindre bilder sammenlignes med de slående om forbigående visuelle effekter som kan oppstå når noe – enten naturlig eller menneskelaget – holder på å gå i oppløsning. ”Conceptions” – slik ordet brukes her – er noe som oppstår i hjernen. Hvis disse begrep/idéer når ut til den praktiske verden, kan de selvfølgelig ha praktiske konsekvenser. Men de fleste blir værende i hjernen som formulerte dem, eller de blir delt med andre hjerner.

Perhaps for anyone who feels the preceding paragraphs of this commentary to be over-abstract, it may be helpful to take a simple analogy from outside the field of art. In the first half of the last century there was incessant debate on the left of politics as to what is True Socialism, and where it is to be found. And when? Some said it was in Stalin’s Russia, until they went there. Then some asked if Stalinism was just a stage on the road to perfect Socialism, or a stage in the decay of a previously perfect Russian socialism, or if True Socialism so far just existed in a book or someone’s head --and if so where? when? Now? In the past? The Italian writer Italo Calvino was intrigued by the problem and satirised it gently in his Le Città Invisibili, a novel by which Ulf Nilsen has clearly been influenced. But Nilsen of course sees that the problem is universal, not specifically political. Much the same question can be asked of the idea of a perfect Christian community, a perfect library, a perfect university.......

It is just the nature of life. And that the artist here seeks to capture.

Hvis noen synes denne ”forklaringen” er litt for abstrakt, kan man ta en parallell utenfra malerkunstens verden. I første halvdel av forrige århundre foregikk det en intens debatt om ”ekte sosialisme” – og hvor det befant seg. Mange mente det var i Stalins Russland – før de dro dit selv. Så kunne man spørre om stalinismen bare var et midlertidig stoppested på veien til det ideelle sosialistiske samfunn – eller kanskje bare en korrupsjon av en tidligere perfeksjon. Eller eksisterte Ekte Sosialisme bare som en idé i en bok, eller i en eller flere hoder? I så fall, når? I fortiden, eller i dag? Den italienske forfatteren Italo Calvino ble fascinert av denne debatten. Den er lett satirisert i hans roman Le Città Invisibili, et verk som åpenbart har influert ”Conceptions”. Men Ulf Nilsen har sett at slike problemer ikke er begrenset bare til politikk.

Lignende spørsmål kan like godt stilles om nesten hva som helst – det perfekte kirkesamfunn, bibliotek, universitet…..

Det ligger bare i livets natur. Som dette prosjektet forsøker å kapre.

Š Ulf Nilsen, 2012 Works from the exhibition Storytellers, STENERSENMUSEET, Oslo, 2012 Photos: Richard Jeffries/Stine Temte Text: Keith Brown/Ulf Nilsen Layout: Stine Temte/Ulf Nilsen