Today I met Hans Olav downtown. As the rain got heavier, we started searching for somewhere to evacuate to and at some point found ourselves at an arts exhibit, the The Autumn Exhibition. The exhibition is Norway’s largest marking of contemporary art and takes place each autumn.

Once again I was reminded that I just don’t get contemporary art. I mean, the paintings I understand to some degree - I see if I think they look nice or not, but what do they all mean? I don’t know. There was a lot of video art and all of it was just way out there in space. Below is a 30 second example that is a good description of most of what we saw.

Update: The author of “Shapes and Conditions”, Solveig Syversen, requested that I removed the above video from Vimeo. So I did. If you’re still interested in watching it, you can buy one of the three existing copies for a mindblowing 2000 USD (source).

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - this is art. A woman banging on livingroom pillows, and the video just went on and on and on and on. I’m sorry, but this is just a load of crap. Maybe I’m just not on the same intellectual level as the people who make this kind of art, but I really don’t get it. Here are a few other examples:

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the mannequin covered in bananas, but I did - as you can see - get pictures of the garden hose, the man made out of noodles and the pieces of wood stacked on top of each other in the corner.

If I insult anyone with my rather sarcastic tone, I’m sorry. But I’m pretty damn sure I could sneak something - anything - into the exhibition, place a sticker with some information on the wall behind it and you’d all think it was a part of the show. For instance, look at this beauty me and Hans Olav made at the museum. We could be artists. Just like that.