SHELF-LIFE
Why would you map a territory that does not exist?
Is illegitimate questions more legitimate?
To what do we owe pleasure?
Eruption or erasure?
Breakdown of heap/barrier of language?
Is questioning good?
Is it a good question?
Is it Beckett enough?
Is it enough, Beckett?
When is contrived contrived?
Is there such a thing as a clean memory?
Could there be a ceremony without a sermon?
What’s up with the context?
Is Benjamin still irrelevant?
What happens, to the work, when a work is destroyed?
Does work have shelf-life?
Is the catalogue complete?
Can a work have no context?
Importance? Is that important?
Does making mean breaking?
How does one go on and on, about erasure?
If pictures are pleasure, is pleasure plain?
Language with undercurrent, does that mean it is outdated?
Command of language, does that make you a soldier, or a general?
Foresight, does that go well with forever?
What are the terms for contradictions?
Is continuation still important?
Whatnot? Whynot? Wherenot?
Beat? Is that a good rhythm?
Is it okay to explain?
Does someone have/need the full overview?
Viewover? Makeover? Over?
What if one only makes, to later erase?
Textual barrier, needs to be jumped?
How to dispose of work?
Something up the sleeve?
Clean slate?
What does early mornings got to do with it?
Exposure, does that help?
What remains?
Is something unsaid?
Unsaid? Unseen? Unknown?
Where is the opening?
Is it only? Is it lonely?
Do you censor?
Construction or production?
What more? What less?
Primal needs, are they for mixed use?

The exhibition “SHELF-LIFE” consist of 10 years of works that has been reworked, thereby destroying the originals. The only thing that remains is a series of black and white photos (and two lamps).

Since his graduation from the National Collage of Art and Design, Oslo in 2004, Øystein Aasan has had a number of exhibitions in Norway and abroad. Selected solo shows include: Gemälde Galerie, Statliche Museum, Berlin, Germany; Sørlandets Art Museum, Kristiansand, Norway; Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany; Lautom, Oslo; PSM, Berlin; Galerie Katharina Bittel, Hamburg; FORDE, Geneva and La Vitrine, Paris. His work has also been shown in exhibitions at venues such as C24 Gallery, New York; Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York; ISCP, New York; Museum Quartier, Vienna; Migros Museum, Zürich; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway, D21 Kunstraum, Leipzig, the sixth Momentum Biennial, Norway and many others. He has since 2002, published a number of reviews and essays in international art magazines. Øystein Aasan, born 1977 in Kristiansand, Norway, lives and works in Berlin and New York.