“Retracing Postures” is the personal exhibition of Norwegian artist Ann Iren Buan at Bazament Art Space, curated by Curate It Yourself, on display from November 2nd to December 10th 2018. Ann Iren Buan works stand out due to the way she transforms the objects – architectural and decorative objects that serve as the starting point for her work – questioning the artistic tradition.
Ann Iren Buan performs pastel drawings on paper, which is also the essence of her creations. The paper is subject to a change in substance, colours and relationships to the exhibition space. The physical brittleness of these jobs speaks perhaps of the weight of time and times, through which change floats, leaving unavoidable traces, but also consequences.
Objects appear diagonal and at times invading space, at first glance they seem accidentally irregular, from edge to edge; at times suspended, some other times with variable-substructure; they come as a body of building objects with a fragile, uncertain appearance, just as uncertain as the fading colour of creations; objects that remind you of construction spaces composed of nets and metal pipes, chains, plaster, paper and paint, where symmetry is combined with asymmetry, crushing the idea of uniformity.
Each one comes as a single or as a set of lines and bends in interaction with space; with the same traits but with different qualities; where balance is provided in one way or another; where objects cause some kind of stumbling block, as well as they may remain unwittingly outside the viewer’s attention. The exhibition resembles a visual transformation of a long conversation with oneself where overlapping thoughts, their pressure is so present. At the entrance or at the end of the exhibition, there is a sack containing irregular and solid pieces, in remembrance of the legend of the “handful of earth” that everyone takes with them when parting, leaving.
* Ann Iren Buan was born in 1984, in Stjørdal, Norway. She lives and works in Oslo. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts at the Oslo National Academy of Arts. Thanks to the student exchange system within this institution, the artist has been part of the interim studies at the China Academy of Art, in Hangzhou, as well as the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, Sweden. Since 2008 she has accomplished a series of personal exhibitions mainly in Norway, but also in Sweden, Italy and Albania. The joint exhibitions in which she participated were held in Barcelona (Spain), Vienna (Austria), Stockholm (Sweden), London (England), Oslo (Norway), Berlin (Germany), Hangzhou (China), Toulouse ( France), Copenhagen (Denmark), Turin, Milan, Brescia (Italy), San Francisco (USA), Moscow (Russia). Since 2010, Ann Iren Buan has won a number of scholarships and prizes in her country of origin.
* Curate It Yourself is a curatorial community based in Paris, directed by Claudia Buizza, Pietro Della Giustina and Jacques Heinrich Toussaint. CIY aims to support emerging artists through performing an art program and creating a collection. Encouraging intercultural exchanges, the circulation of international artistic creation and conversation with artists, are at the core of its work methodology.
