It’s been a busy weekend in Oslo, finally fulfilling my lucky all expenses paid trip; tusen takk to Headhunters / Momentum / Norwegian Embassy. I went to several galleries, went to the National Library of Norway, where “Move To Oslo”, including one of my illustration commissions, was recently exhibited last month as part of an A-ha related exhibition. This was now replaced with an utstilling of work by a prolific Norwegian children’s book illustrator. I had hoped I would have time to meet up with David Sandum, of Twitter Art exhibition, but unfortunately my new phone wouldn’t work in Oslo and I couldn’t get hold of anyone.
For now, I’ve updated this blog with images from the Apparatjik live performance at the opening of the Astrup Fearnley Museet http://helend-blackbird.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/oslo-trip-2012.html
On Friday evening, after checking into the hotel, I took my brother for a walk around Oslo and wandered down to Aker Brygge to have a sneaky preview of the Astrup Fearnley Museet the night before it opened.
Magne Furuholmen has a gallery nearby with Paul Stolper; Stolper & Friends, and I always receive invitations to private views / exhibitions, but obviously cannot always go to them. And I’d had one recently, but was so busy with my own exhibition and preparation that I barely gave it a second thought. If I had, I would’ve made sure I went in good time to catch Magne and Paul there, but what happened was that we wandered past later on in the evening, not even knowing there was a pv on, and I actually got star struck seeing Magne standing outside chatting to a small group of women. I think he saw me, which made me go into some kind of mental A-ha fan mode that I never thought possible, certainly never happened when i met Morten Harket, and I just continued going past. It was as if all of a sudden, a forcefield had appeared round the gallery stopping me from even thinking about going anywhere near. So I went round the block and pointed him out to my brother. Then I can’t remember what we did next, I think we went back to the hotel – either way, it was utterly crap! And I kicked myself later on, as I only spoke to him briefly after the Apparatjik gig, and he didn’t have time to stop and chat. The first words Magne said to me were “I’ve got to go and have a shower” before hurrying away.
I went round the Astrup Fearnley Museet the following day and saw lots of the work there, including something of Damien Hirst’s that I’d never come across before, before there was a fire alarm and we left to take up the free evening buffet in Carl Ungers Loft before the gig that evening.
