Mat Jenner. a_MAsS_amASs

Borealis and Bergen Kunsthall present the first Norwegian exhibition of the British artist Mat Jenner. Working across drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, ephemera and sound, Jenner’s work is concerned with what it means to be a producer and spectator today and the experience of what he terms ‘now- ness’ – the moment of seeing and listening as an ‘event’.

For NO.5 Jenner has produced a new installation entitled "aMasS_a_mASs", a play on the English word that is a descriptive noun for a physical substance, weight or collection and also a verb for collecting or coming together. In "aMasS_a_mASs" the gallery is imagined as a live display space that bears witness to an accumulation of time and production. For Jenner this is a space synonymous with the artist’s studio, in which artworks are continuously rewritten and the present tense is foregrounded.

For the duration of Borealis, 9 – 13 March, the festival will host a series of talks, screenings and performances within the installation, contributing to the performative and social nature of the space.

Central to the installation is a presentation of Jenner’s ongoing project FOAM, a peripatetic and growing collection of commissioned artist’s sound works. Initiated by Jenner in 2013, the project is considered at once an archive, sculpture and performance that focuses on the physical and social aspect of listening and artistic experience. With over 125 artistic works accumulated so far, each artwork is presented as a unique, one-off 12” dub plate record, which visitors are invited to select and play within the gallery space.

FOAM exists in contrast to the pervasive availability of digital media content, with Jenner enforcing an artificial scarcity. Each record is unique, neither replicated or broad- cast online and can only be listened to in situ in the gallery space. Much like a needle on a spinning record, FOAM draws people to its center, requiring an audience to interact with it. It is through this action that Jenner intends to manifest slowness and presence as an aesthetic, in an era when speed and immediacy is expected and demanded.

With the support of the Hordaland Fylkeskommune, and in collaboration with Jenner, Borealis and Bergen Kunsthall have commissioned a number of artists living and working in Hordaland Fylkeskommune and the UK to make new sound works for inclusion in FOAM. These new works are available for audiences to listen to along with existing artworks in the archive. Full details of contributing artists and works are available at www.ffooaamm.org.

Mat Jenner (b. 1976) lives and works in London.

The exhibition ”aMasSa mASs” is organized as a residency, where the artist will use the exhibition in Bergen Kunsthall as his base for a period of 2 weeks. Making excursions from this base residency, he will also present his work in other areas in the Hordaland region.