I took a long weekend to go party with my friends in Oslo, and while I was there I decided to check out some exhibitions. A fellow art student recommended that I should check out what they had on at the museum of contemporary art and boy was I glad she did so, Nicholas HLOBO is really something.
It was a bit as if painting wasn't invented yet and then somebody just suddenly mastered it out of nothing, that was how alien it looked to me. Then again, I'm pretty new to the art world and art history, so it might look completely ordinary to somebody else.
It feels sort of cheap to compare him to Dali, maybe because I've been comparing so many other artists to Dali lately, but there's diffidently something surreal about the figures stitched together from black rubber and ribbon into graceful yet nightmarish forms often contemplating the paradoxical about being human that still begs for that comparison. I think this is a grim reminder to myself to read up on my art history. I really don't want to sound like a fawning yokel for ever...
This is the kind of exhibition that I think I would've personally loved to put together. There is so much craziness going on, so much contrast and so much potential harmony. There is even one installation going through one wall going out another yet managing to look interesting in both rooms.
I can't help to think that it must have been a fun job :)
As for making the work I think it must have taken ages and ages and lots of concentration and thinking and awareness. I wonder how it all started? I find I really want to read about this guy. I mean, did he just pick up some ribbon and a slither of black rubber one day and set to it?
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