Marius Mathisrud
Hvorfor Du Sluttet å Eksistere (Why You Ceased to Exist)
Exhibition spaces on the 2nd floor
22.02.24 — 07.04.24

Be someone else

Be someone

Be no one

As I walk through the doors of Kunstnerforbundet’s rather understated, yet venerable, premises, I think to myself that the air feels so damn heavy lately. It has been like this for quite a while. So much is happening all around, and everything is entangled in the most absurd ways. It is as if there is a smoldering fire constantly threatening to spread or flare up. Amidst all this, there is a murmur of voices constantly wanting something. A cacophonous chaos of ‘unique’ voices wishing for people to listen to them. A multitude of emotions blending and diluting as they touch each other/interact with one another. The unwavering belief that destiny has chosen you to be the cuckoo chick that takes up space and pushes its step-siblings/species-enemies off the edge of the nest, quickly leads to the realisation that; Ha, why am I falling at a furious pace down the birch trunk? Was that a shove I just felt? I can not fly, can I? Damn it, am I not the cuckoo?

So, you cease to exist.

I look around. The monochrome(tone) and seemingly industrialised panels are handmade by Mathisrud himself. Epoxy lamination of carbon fiber cloth; sanding, grinding, and polishing. I wonder, why this effort to create genuine fakes of a mass-produced product?

 ’Where are you going?’ the man said.
’I am going into the forest to make troughs for my father, he dislikes eating with the rest of us’, said Per.
’Troughs it shall be!’ said the man.
’What do you have in your sack?’ asked the man.
’Dirt’, said Per.
’Dirt it shall be’, said the man.

He then sent Per into the oak forest and chopped and crafted everything he could manage; but everything he chopped, and everything he crafted, turned out to be nothing but troughs and troughs. When it was nearing dinner time, he wanted something to eat and took out his bindle. But there was no food in the bindle.

I have to ask; are we not becoming more and more alike in the pursuit of the unique individual we believe exists within ourselves? We neither see nor accept that the tools used in this pursuit are illusory and devalue the very idea of individuality. We are all genuine fakes, with a shared conviction that uniqueness and individuality exist. We must make sure that the ‘life lie’ we carry is never taken away from us.

The film I AM EKHO is the conceptual nerve that unites the exhibition into an entity/unifies the exhibition. It is projected from an apparatus protruding from the spine of a generic (made in China?) goddess. In the film, we follow an individual (if it can be called an individual?) in a time where individuality and uniqueness no longer exist. Ekho, which is the name of the protagonist, fights an inner existential battle. Ekho can neither express themselves verbally, show emotions, nor have any form of individual uniqueness. This individual has lost everything that makes a human being human/allows a human being to call themselves a human.

Poor Ekho. Here, we are obviously supposed to draw parallels to Ovid's Metamorphoses. The myth of Ekho and Narcissus goes something like this: The rhetorically gifted nymph Ekho is deprived of her ability to speak by the goddess Hera. The curse does not render Ekho mute, but transforms her into an echo. Ekho is in love with Narcissus, but Narcissus unknowingly falls in love with his own reflection, which he one day sees in a pool of water. Every time he declares his love to his own reflection, the words are echoed (by Ekho). With each echo, Narcissus is drawn closer and closer to his reflected image and eventually drowns in it. Ekho is tragically complicit in Narcissus's death. When will we ever learn? This is old stuff.

In Japan, they say the nail that sticks out must be hammered down. What happens when a lot of nails stick out? Or halfway up? Or crooked? And some are hammered so hard into the table that they almost go through to the other side? ...darned Law of Jante (yawn).

And then there was the heavy air. It did not exactly get any lighter after this visit. But I think: as long as you believe in yourself, everything will be fine. We cheer for you. We empathise with you. You can do it. Cuckoo.

- Written by Igory Mansotti

Marius Mathisrud (b. 1987, Oslo) works with sculpture, installation, and film, and holds a degree from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Netherlands. He has participated in exhibitions at W139 Amsterdam (2015 and 2017), ArtRotterdam (2019), VHDG Leeuwarden, Netherlands (2018), NESTruimte, Netherlands (2019), Claptrap in Belgium (2020), Heerz Tooya in Bulgaria (2019), Galleri CC in Malmö (2018), Hulias (2021 and 2023, Oslo), and Rod Bianco (now Galleri Golsa) (2017, Oslo). Mathisrud was part of Høstutstillingen in 2018 with the film FreeDOOM Fighter, which has also been shown at Kristiansund Kunstforening, Asker Kunstforening, Neadalen Kunstforening, and Bømlo Kunstlag (2018). Between 2017 and 2020, Mathisrud lived and worked in Berlin. There he produced, among other works, the film The Voice is Loudest in Your Head, which was part of the opening exhibition Jeg kaller det kunst at the Norwegian National Museum of Art in 2022. The exhibition has received funding from Kulturdirektoratet, Fritt Ord, Norsk filminstitutt, and the Municipality of Oslo.