The underlying idea of this project is that a work of art, by its presence, creates a place of its own. The sculpture also visualizes its surroundings, thus giving the place a new dimension. Artscape Nordland has also given rise to a wide-ranging and important debate on contemporary art in the region.
RØST
Title: The Nest. The column fragments are 25 cm thick and 85 cm in diameter. The eggs are 25 cm in diameter.
Artist: Luciano Fabro, Italy.
Luciano Fabro says that his sculpture, The Nest, is a monument made for birds. The sculpture is located on an island where migratory birds nest. The shapes in the sculpture are derived from both nature and culture. The eggs mark the beginning of
life, while the classical shape of the columns tells us of bygone splendour.
Location: The bird island of Vedøya.
MOSKENES
Title: Laurel Leaves - Moskenes. Two aluminium wall reliefs 273 x 266 and 312 x 266 cm.
Artist: Cristina Iglesias, Spain.
Laurel Leaves - Moskenes highlights the location of the naturally formed Devil's Grotto. The artist has placed a relief wall on both sides of the entrance, intending to emphasise its mystery and innate character. The transformation of the site into a work of art is about the human will to make things beautiful. The idea of beauty here is derived from the patterns of nature, the shapes that by repetition form "a landscape within a landscape" as the artist has said, or, one might add, "a pattern among the patterns made by the vegetation".
Location: Between the E10 and the fjord, 2 km north of Hamnøy.
FLAKSTAD
Title: Epitaph. Material: Natural rocks. Height: 5 m. Diameter: 8.5 m.
Shape: Cylindrical
Artist: Toshikatsu Endo, Japan.
Endo often uses the circle as a basis for his sculptures. As a symbol, it expresses eternal and inherent order in a concept of time that is circular as opposed to the linear conception of time that we are used to in the western way of thinking.
Location: Just off the road to Skjelfjord, approx. 2 km from Ramberg.
VESTVÅGØY
Title: Head. Iron and granite. Height 178 cm.
Artist: Markus Raetz, Switzerland.
Markus Raetz's art is about seeing, about how we observe the things around us. We are reminded that surprises may also occur in other every day situations, if we have our wits about us. The sculpture in Eggum changes its form - and thus also its content - 16 times as the viewer walks around the sculpture. From one viewing
angle, it looks like a classical portrait, and from another the head is seen upside down.
Location: About 2 km beyond the village of Eggum.
VÅGAN
Untitled. Glass and steel. Height: 2,5 m.
Artist: Dan Graham, USA.
What role does the onlooker play in his encounter with a work of modern art? Graham's solution to this question explicitly involves the actual sculptural structure itself. In his pavilions, with their walls of glass and mirrors, the onlooker becomes aware of both his physical position and the relationship between this and the sculpture's transparent and reflective walls, while simultaneously seeing himself
in the same environment as that which surrounds the work of art itself.
Location: By the E10, near the old ferry docks at Lyngvær.
www.artscape.no
Røst, Moskenes, Flakstad, Vestvågøy and Vågan. All photos: Vegard Moen.
