Light Lines: The Art of Jan Groth, Inger Johanne Grytting, and Thomas Pihl (1/12/19)

This was a gallery talk on the last day of the exhibit at Scandinavia House. All three of the artists are Norwegian, and one of them, Mr. Groth, was unable to attend. So instead of a gallery talk (and apparently because many more people responded than expected), two of the artists gave their viewpoints on their work and the mentorship they both experienced with Mr. Groth. During this time, a few slides were shown that were representative of the three artists’ work that we would later see in the gallery itself, upstairs.

Both Mr. Pihl and Ms. Grytting seemed a little uncomfortable talking about their work and the processes involved. They both seemed better at discussing how Mr. Groth’s mentorship had affected them. While interesting, this ‘talk’ portion of the event was slightly awkward. The wine and sangria that were served helped a little, though.

Once in the gallery, Mr. Pihl’s contribution consisted of eight rather large paintings, each pretty much a solid block of color. His works were Untitled #1 through Untitled #8. I’m not making this up, you know.

Ms. Grytting had drawings and paintings on display. They were repetitive horizontal lines with a few verticals that sometimes created little rectangles. There were little white squares on the drawings, but I couldn’t make any sense of whether they were supposed to represent anything. It turns out that they did not. Whenever her pencil tip broke, she began the next line a little past where the previous line ended. So the squares were totally random. Her work was like a visual representation of a Philip Glass composition. I don’t particularly enjoy Philip Glass. Oh, and most (maybe all?) of her works were Untitled.

Mr. Groth had two bronze sculptures on display—and they actually had titles! A woven tapestry was an interesting study in black and white (mostly black with a white vertical section bisecting it). His other work was a site-specific black drawing (crayon, I think) on an otherwise bare white wall. Its size and scope gave it interest, to me. That was the piece I liked best.

Am I glad I went? Sort of. Will I seek out other shows at Scandinavia House? Possibly. I did enjoy conversation with my seatmate before the event began. And after I viewed the art on display, I had an interesting conversation with a writer for a Spanish-language newspaper. Maybe the second glass of red wine contributed to that. At least my horizons were slightly broadened.

NonConcertMeister