Möbius (Bergen)

Opening: May 7, 2016, 14:00-
Venue: Damsgård, Alléen 29 | Laksevaag, Bergen 5160, Norway

Duration: May 8, 2016 – June 5, 2016
Opening hours: Daily 12:00 – 15:00, except Thursday 15:00 – 19:00

The Shepherd

From a dried-out seabed littered with skeletal remains, a medieval shepherd leads a flock of sheep, a gang of banana juggling sailors and a party of rococo styled hedonists up a tower evoking the fossilized shell of an ammonite. As they reach the top on the tower’s spiraling steps they tumble to the ground, forming new seabed sediments.

The extinct ammonite sea mollusk is the model for a set piece in Miho Shimizu and Øyvind Renberg´s film Möbius, produced for their exhibition at the 18th century Damsgård Manor in Bergen. Over the last eight months the artists have worked both on location at the manor, and with elaborate live tableaux in a theatre studio in Berlin.

While observing the interiors of Damsgård, laden with intricate colorful wallpapers, faux marble and wall paintings, the empty manor also leaves space to wonder about life there before it was turned into a museum. Through a breadth of costumes, sculptural set pieces, actors and choreographic approaches, Shimizu and Renberg responds to the idea of the abandoned house with a series of dream scenarios. In the film, the “ammonite steps” tower functions as a theatrical devise to visualize metaphors about life as a process of rising and falling. Echoing the staircase located in the manor house, the set piece connects the film´s fantasy scenes with the architectural situation of Damsgård. Laid out as a circular path through the building, from the Lady´s bedroom, the red, blue and yellow rooms on the ground floor to the large ballroom on the upper floor, each room presents new colors and atmospheres. These in turn feed back into visual and conceptual fabric of Möbius.

Catalogue
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue that presents a larger body of work leading to Möbius, produced in response to travels along the West coast of Norway, as well as the Damsgård manor. Realized in different parts of the world during the last six years, the material starts with picture scrolls and wallpapers inspired by flowers from the Damsgård garden and a fjord mural painted as a picture scroll for those who drive by in cars on the FDR road on Manhattan, New York. The video trilogy Free Townswoman, Seeing Double, Double Trouble, shot in Berlin, Tokyo and San Diego, introduces characters and scene motifs explored further in Möbius. The productions were initiated during a traveling residency organized by Hordaland Kunstsenter in 2009-10. Hordaland Kunstsenter is collaboration partner for the exhibition at Damsgård, and in the publication of the catalogue.

Möbius (Film)
Cast: Zayne Armstrong, Leoni Börger, Carlos Hidalgo, Manou Jacob, Katrin Kats, Diana Knauthe, Daniel Kupferberg, Christian Kutzner, Joe Neave, Øyvind Renberg, Adrian Schiesser, Miho Shimizu, Antonije Stankovic, Efrat Stempler, Julien Villaret, Larissa Wagenhals
Directors: Miho Shimizu and Øyvind Renberg
Costumes and set pieces: Eva Baumann, Kirsty Roberts
Assistance: Adrian Schiesser, Julien Villaret
Camera Bergen: Andrew Amorim
Light assistant Bergen: Gunnar Hjartholm Knudsen
Camera and Lights Berlin: Joji Koyama
Choreographer: Efrat Stempler
Runner: Leoni Börger
Make-up: Manou Jacob
Music: Satoshi Ikeda
Location: Damsgård, Bergen / Uferstudios, Berlin

Möbius (Catalogue)
Published by: Miho Shimizu and Øyvind Renberg in collaboration with Hordaland Kunstsenter
Distributed by: Miho Shimizu and Øyvind Renberg
Design: Alexander Schmidt (Plaintype)
Copy editing: Tania Inowlocki
Printing: druckhaus köthen, Köthen (Anhalt), Germany

Institutional Support
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Arts Council Norway / Statens utstillingsstipend