(b. 1979, Norway) lives and works in Oslo. She holds a BA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts (Institute for color) and Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She undertook an independent project in artistic research for 6 months at the Akademin Valand, School of Photography in Gothenburg.
Eggen has exhibited at venues such as Henie Onstad Art Center, Haugar Vestfold Artmuseum, Lillehammer Art Museum, Kunstnerforbundet, gallery 1857, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City and Ulterior Gallery, New York.
Recent solo exhibitions include the FUTURE FAIR 2022 at Chelsea Industrial, New York, TRUST - f/stop - 9. Festival fur Fotografie Leipzig (2021), galleri MELK (2021), Oslo Negativ (2021), Galleri Noplace, Oslo (2020), Fotografihuset, Sukkerbiten (2020) and Sandefjord kunstforening (2020). Her work is in several private and public collections such as The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, The National Museum in Oslo, The Henie Onstad art collection, Equinor Art Programme and Oslo kommunes art collection.
In 2017 she was nominated for the Sparebankstiftelsen DNB's art grant.

Ingrid Eggen

Ingrid Eggen (b. 1979, Norway) lives and works in Oslo. She holds a BA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts (Institute for color) and Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She undertook an independent project in artistic research for 6 months at the Akademin Valand, School of Photography in Gothenburg.

Eggen has exhibited at venues such as Henie Onstad Art Center, Haugar Vestfold Artmuseum, Lillehammer Art Museum, Kunstnerforbundet, gallery 1857, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City and Ulterior Gallery, New York.

Recent solo exhibitions include the FUTURE FAIR 2022 at Chelsea Industrial, New York, TRUST - f/ stop - 9. Festival fur Fotografie Leipzig (2021), galleri MELK (2021), Oslo Negativ (2021), Galleri Noplace, Oslo (2020), Fotografihuset, Sukkerbiten (2020) and Sandefjord kunstforening (2020). Her work is in several private and public collections such as The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, The National Museum in Oslo, The Henie Onstad art collection, Equinor Art Programme and Oslo kommunes art collection.

Pillars of skin and bone stand stretching toward a glowing sun. I have the feeling of a landscape, a desolate landscape, there are no leaves, no wind. Only the creak of the limbs. The pillars that sink into the dusty orange earth also lift up the sky. They spin on their own axis, draped with folds of skin. Several of the limbs have been here for a long time, the bones are withered and the skin slides down to the ground like melted wax.

I take a few steps in between the limbs. They breathe against m

e, exhale through the pores of the skin, they are alive. Sweat oozes from the bark of the skin, bubbling trunks. The smell of sweat is cool, like a crisp breeze from a salty sea. The skin forms a small cave.

A fold of skin, and a crevice, the undulating skin, a hollow against the bone, they are all receptive to touch, and move and quiver slightly when I press my thumb into the fat, soft layers. The body’s largest organ is the skin, the wild patterns of cells, created and recreated in front of me.

The skin slips, melts, regenerates. The glaciers of the skin.

There is someone who comes here and looks after the limbs, they are the skin workers. They wear gloves, beige suits in a papery fabric that creaks when they move. They sweep the ground around the limbs, singing while they work, the dust swirl in front of them like the veils of bee keepers. The skin folds and unfolds, shape itself to their song. When the workers withdraw, the skin bleeds small drops of orange, resinous liquid.

The skin is a crawling child, clinging to the bones.

I stand between the pillars and after a few days a warmth slides up through my body from the soles of my feet. My own skin is starting to crumble. My feet glow with a lava-like heat, slowly they sink into the dry earth. I take root, grow between the other pillars. I bow forward. As I dig my nails into the limbs to make contact, a low moan emits. Oh, I have to be careful, if I touch them with too much force, they pull back with a soft swish, like a tendon that’s been stretched too far, shyly.

I stand in the sunset, licking skin salt from one of the limbs.

I know if I stand here long enough I’ll begin to take shape after them.

We are excited to present Ingrid Eggen’s third solo exhibition at MELK.

Skinvelop

Ingrid Eggen (b. 1978, NO) is concerned with the body and its involuntary actions, the ones we deem irrational. These actions are on a par with affect theory: They turn us away from the rational and towards the notion that something more basic informs our actions, such as muscles, reflexes and instinct.
Recent solo exhibitions include MELK, Oslo (2021), Oslo Negativ (2021), The 9th f/stop - Festival für Fotografie Leipzig (2021) Fotografihuset at Sukkerbiten (2020), Noplace (2020), Sandefjord Art Center (2020), gallery Knipsu, Bergen (2018) and MELK, Oslo (2018). Eggen’s work has recently been acquired by the National Museum in Norway, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, The The Henie Onstad Collection, Møller Collection Haugar Kunstmuseum, Equinor Art Programme and KORO.

Gesture is one of the obsessions of modernity, it has been stated. Methods of studying, observing and archiving were put to use in science and art, for example, to build anthropological catalogues of human embodied knowledge and memory, or to boost efficiency in industrial production. Film and photography have been instrumental in this endeavor, as means to record, dissect, fragment, isolate, extract, slow down and store certain gestures from the flow of life. Eggen’s project stands in continuation with and contrast to this tradition. Rather than capturing gestures that can be further honed for utilitarian and economic purpose, or that are already deeply encultured and engrained in our bodies, Ingrid Eggen seeks out the ones that are not. Thereby she partakes in the production of a new bodily language in order to reach beyond the optimizing and ordered organization of the body.

In her work, Eggen is interested in how living bodies develop new physical and psychological capabilities in response to changed living conditions, be they cultural, social, technological or environmental. A general ecological turn in contemporary philosophy and art resonates here, in which attention is directed towards the interrelations between organisms and their milieus. One can also see the works in grapple grasp at Future Fair against the more specific backdrop of an intensified formalization of hand gestures put in place by the influx of, and our quick habituation with, touchscreens in the last decade. Surely, gestures of the body and of the hands have historically been subjected to formalization and codification. Classical and Renaissance rhetorical treatises provided detailed guidance to orators regarding the rhetorical power of specific gestures. The Mudras of Buddhism and Hinduism provide an extensive catalogue of symbolic gestures of the hands and fingers used in meditation, ceremonies and dance, considered to release certain reflexes. In gang culture, hand signs are key identificatory markers. Indeed, body language and sensory perception is always culturally coded, as pointed out for instance by anthropologist Constance Classen. With touchscreens, however, this codification is of a different and highly intensified order, with tech companies patenting and securing corporate ownership to a rapidly increasing number of (touch) gestures. Thereby a highly formatted language of hand gestures is in development.

MELK is proud to present Norwegian artist Ingrid Eggen and Swedish artist Erik Gustafsson at CHART 2021. Both artists are dealing with analog photography in a performative and gestural way that are beyond documentary narratives. With an intricate understanding of color and light they push the boundaries of contemporary photography, how we interact with images, and our understanding of the photograph as object.

Future Fair

Ingrid Eggen (b. 1979) is based in Oslo, Norway. Recent solo exhibitions include Oslo Negativ (2021), The 9th f/stop – Festival für Fotografie Leipzig (2021), Fotografihuset at Sukkerbiten (2020), Noplace (2020), Sandefjord Art Center (2020), gallery Knipsu, Bergen (2018) and MELK, Oslo (2017). Eggen’s work has recently been acquired by the National Museum in Norway, KIASMA, Møllersamlingen, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Equinor Art Programme and KORO.

What does it mean to get a grip? Or to grasp something? These questions are underlying Ingrid Eggen’s recent body of work. For a decade Eggen has been exploring the body as a site for involuntary everyday actions, the ones we deem irrational, driven by instincts and reflexes. Through several projects, she has photographed young women and men as they twist and bend out of their ordinary shapes. In intense and long sittings, her models perform awkward, complex poses that unexpectedly disjoint and juxtapose different parts of the body. Recent works disjoint the body further by concentrating on contorted hands, a move that is deepened in the new photographs presented in the exhibition grapple grasp. In a muted color palette, eleven large color prints depict hands performing elaborate, acrobatic gestures that vaguely echoes ones we know – a clenched fist, a shadow play figure – yet that escape easy decoding.

Gesture is one of the obsessions of modernity, it has been stated. Methods of studying, observing and archiving were put to use in science and art, for example, to build anthropological catalogues of human embodied knowledge and memory, or to boost efficiency in industrial production. Film and photography have been instrumental in this endeavor, as means to record, dissect, fragment, isolate, extract, slow down and store certain gestures from the flow of life. Eggen’s project stands in continuation with and contrast to this tradition. Rather than capturing gestures that can be further honed for utilitarian and economic purpose, or that are already deeply encultured and engrained in our bodies, she seeks out the ones that are not. Thereby she partakes in the production of a new bodily language in order to reach beyond the optimizing and ordered organization of the body.

In her work, Eggen is interested in how living bodies develop new physical and psychological capabilities in response to changed living conditions, be they cultural, social, technological or environmental. A general ecological turn in contemporary philosophy and art resonates here, in which attention is directed towards the interrelations between organisms and their milieus. One can also see the works in grapple grasp against the more specific backdrop of an intensified formalization of hand gestures put in place by the influx of, and our quick habituation with, touchscreens in the last decade. Surely, gestures of the body and of the hands have historically been subjected to formalization and codification. Classical and Renaissance rhetorical treatises provided detailed guidance to orators regarding the rhetorical power of specific gestures. The Mudras of Buddhism and Hinduism provide an extensive catalogue of symbolic gestures of the hands and fingers used in meditation, ceremonies and dance, considered to release certain reflexes. In gang culture, hand signs are key identificatory markers. Indeed, body language and sensory perception is always culturally coded, as pointed out for instance by anthropologist Constance Classen. With touchscreens, however, this codification is of a different and highly intensified order, with tech companies patenting and securing corporate ownership to a rapidly increasing number of (touch) gestures. Thereby a highly formatted language of hand gestures is in development.

In contrast, the acrobatic bending and entwining of fingers, palm and back of the hand that we encounter in Eggen’s work are seemingly devoid of communicative power or utilitarian purpose. The large prints enhance the sculptural qualities of the molded hands, which appear almost as autonomous bodies. A starting point for the series is however the fundamental human gestures of grasping and throwing. Eggen has staged a confrontation between the two. Hands and fingers grasp onto each other, in some cases forcefully, while simultaneously pushing away. These dual forces reshape, expand and stabilize the hands in novel configurations, wherein two hands merge into one. From their seemingly impossible placements of muscles and bones emerges a more animalistic and instinctive body, demonstrating an affinity with the Surrealist quest to move beyond the confines of rational modernity.

What, then, does it mean to get a grip on things? In 

 it may be to hold on even tighter to thereby fully let go.

The exhibition is supported by Arts Council Norway and Oslo Kommune

We are proud to present the second solo exhibition by Ingrid Eggen at MELK titled grapple grasp.

grapple grasp

Ingrid Eggen (b. 1979, NO) explores non-verbal communication and symbolism, often by breaking down and distorting body language. She is especially interested in our bodies involuntary actions, the ones we deem irrational. In reflexes and instincts and in the unspoken messages they convey. With the help of performative methods, she looks into movements and actions where the body’s natural anatomy, non-verbal language and use of gestures and symbols are displaced, dissolved and twisted.

Recent solo exhibitions include Fotografihuset at Sukkerbiten (2020), Noplace (2020), Sandefjord Art Center (2020), gallery Knipsu, Bergen (2018) and MELK, Oslo (2018). Eggen’s work has recently been acquired by the National Museum in Norway, Møllersamlingen and KORO.

With over 12.000 square meters, Oslo Negativ will show 23 exhibitions by galleries and institutions at the old library (Det Gamle Biblioteket) in Oslo in October.

The audience will be given the opportunity to see the library’s many hidden rooms and corridors where the exhibitors have used the existing and historical architecture to create unique presentations.

MELK is proud to present the Norwegian artist Ingrid Eggen at the newly established photo festival 

. The presentation is a preview of Ingrid Eggen’s work aligning with her solo exhibition at MELK, which opens on October 15.

Oslo Negativ

Eggen works with analog color photography, video and sculpture. Her work explores the body as a site for involuntary everyday actions, the ones we deem irrational, in reflexes and instincts and in the unspoken messages they convey.
She examines nonverbal communication and body symbolism, often dismantling and distorting body language.
With the help of performative methods, she searches for new opportunities in bodily movement and tries to capture the ones not already deeply enculturated and rooted in our bodies. With this, she attempts to take part in the production of a new physical language, one that can reach beyond the optimizing and orderly organization of the body.