Ulla-Mari Brantenberg

The conceptual background for this series of small solo exhibitions is to play out new and different expressions against Drammens Museum's permanent collection of 18th century outstanding glass, silver, faience and tin. An encounter between older and new that both shows differences and provides a context that will make the old as well as the new, even clearer as an expression than if they were individually shown in a neutral setting.

In the past, the decorative and ornate Rococo objects have formed the soundtrack for Marit Tingleff's rough contemporary ceramics, the Swiss Fischli & Weiss' world-famous video-filmed chain reaction (Der Lauf der Dinge), Andreas Heuch's total installation and Anglo-American Peter Moore's black and white photographs of new dance and performance in The New York environment in the 1960s and 70s. The effect has been as desired; we have been able to experience meaningful confrontation and mutual elaboration. New beauty was created.

This is the first time we have exhibited a glass artist in this room, which is named after Nøstetangenverket's magnificent glass. The selection is based not only on the fact that it will be completely first-class artists who are invited, but that their work is also able to be included in the mentioned dialogue. Ulla-Mari Brantenberg's glass is very different from the Nøstetangen glass. The most obvious difference is that the Nøstetangen glass is characterized by engraved letters and patterns. Brantenberg works with glossy and matte-etched surfaces; she also uses colored glass and her goods are often cleaner, more compact and organic than 1760s glass.

What makes these very visible differences still open for a conversation over the almost 250 years that have passed, has to do with the fact that glass art, such as handmade and human-blown, must adapt to natural conditions - what we can call the phenomenology of glassblowing. That is, the use of the possibilities and respect for the limitations that lie in the fact that glass is sand that is melted at a sufficiently high temperature, that the glass in molten form is soft and therefore possible to shape through blowing and arm and hand movements. The mind and the body and matter must be seen in context and they must interact, that is what is the principle of phenomenology. This fact, which is a given possibility that is not entirely subject to historical and economic fluctuations, means that both old and new glass have in common that it is created in intimate contact with a human body. There is also something common in the intended use, such as a vase, cup or drinking glass. All of this also has to do with the human body and the use of objects. There is an inseparable connection between mouth and throat on the one hand, the need for water and beer and wine to be poured into a tight container on the other, and thus the shape of the drinking glass, as the third side in the triangle of glass art.

What particularly distinguishes Ulla-Mari Brantenberg's glass is an organic shape. There is an unbroken movement from her sensitivity and body to the finished glass we can see in the exhibition. Her starting point is of course characterized by her experiences, what she has seen and recognized in flowers and in exotic weapons, cult and utility objects. She draws in her memories of cold winter days and gives shape to the feeling of the difference between outside and inside a frosted window. She breathes in visions from the awe-inspiring starry sky, ocean waves and semi-transparent depths. She has an exquisite sense of musical progression, which is revealed in the fact that she is also a good singer, but which is also linked to her highly developed ability to observe. She looks at how a pollinator springs from the base of the flower and how it ends in a potent and oblong, slight bulge. She notices how the petal is attached to the stem and how this transition marks both a shift and a continuity in the entire course of the flower from the ground to the pollinator's appetizing tip. She sees the wings attached to the insect's body and how the joints overlap in a mollusk's protective shield. This sensitivity to continuity through rhythmic parts of different length and form, is something that is also found in the rhythm of the verbal language itself, where short and long syllables, opening and closing syllables and pressure strength and pressure difference, help to give the statements both form and sensitivity. This is something that an artist of Ulla-Mari Brantenberg's caliber sees as a common feature in nature and in the song and in the sentence. That this is something that can be recreated and fit into the glassblowing's natural conditions and possibilities, is precisely what creates her very special and beautiful design language. That this is sensual, yes sometimes almost erotic, goes without saying. For it is such processes, and such transitions and edges that play such a significant role in people's sensory dealings with the environment and each other. Such everyday sensual poetry is part of the basis for the craft's strong position. These are beautiful things that can also be used - not used as the avant-garde theorists seem to believe - for a purposeful rational enrichment of money or other practical purpose, but to give life shine and celebrate the best of what is given to us as human beings and as nature. It is a meaningful, sensual use. Which is a goal in itself: pouring wine into a beautiful glass, drinking it alone or with others, is a goal in itself. And what is a better use, a more self-fulfilling act, than to pick flowers and put them in a vase?

That an exhibition like this can build a bridge of sensuality and musicality over a chasm of historical upheavals and societal changes, shows how strong and vibrant these parts of human life are.   
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This exhibition shows a demanding selection of works that were selected for the large retrospective exhibition Ulla-Mari Brantenberg, Glass 1976-2004 curated by Frank Falch at Sørlandets kunstmuseum in Kristiansand and which was later shown at Kunstbanken in Hamar. The selection has been made especially with regard to this exhibition in the Nøstetangen room. In the four wall niches there are older and new drinking glasses. In the period October 29 to November 20, Ulla-Mari Brantenberg shows new glass works in the Artists' Association in Oslo.

Brantenberg has participated in a number of exhibitions at home and abroad. In particular, we can highlight the solo exhibitions at the Museum of Art and Design in Copenhagen in 2001 and at the North Norwegian Art Museum in Tromsø in 2002. She has participated in a number of important group exhibitions at home and abroad, including Scandinavia Today in Tokyo in 1987-88 and Norwegian Alternatives in Washington DC in 1999. Brantenberg is represented in private and public collections in several countries, in all three, the national craft museums in Norway, and in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Åsmund Thorkildsen

Museum director