The Artist Entrepreneur
Tough Guy Mountain is an ongoing project focusing on the glories, trials, and absurdity of late capitalism. As an artist collective of over a dozen members, TGM creates presentations of capitalist aesthetic and consumer culture. TGM creates narrative performances where the collective plays a fantastical corporation that treats abstract concepts like Art and Post-Capitalism as its clients.
Ruben Steinum (b. 1984, Oslo, Norway) is an artist and co-founder of the digital art sales platform Atelier. Steinum graduated from the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo in 2011. In his artistic practice, he works with object-based sculpture, drawing and photography. His interest in pop and everyday culture comes to light through the use of commercial objects, appropriation of brands and in the relationship between the artwork and the title. He is currently working towards an exhibitions at Elephant Kunsthall in Lillehammer and at a sculpture park at Nesodden. He has exhibited at Tidens Krav (Oslo), Arts Incubator at Washington Park (Chicago), Kunsthall Oslo, Podium (Oslo), Rogaland Art Center (Stavanger) and RAKE (Trondheim).
Steinum is chairman of the Young Artists Society (UKS) and board member of Norwegian Visual Artists (NBK).
Image 1: Texas Sweet Chai Latte (Pour Femme) How good can you feel?™ Yogi Tea. Photo: Ruben Steinum
Image 2: Treat Yourself. Sodastream Taittinger, Sodastream Möet & Chandon, Sodastream Veuve Clicquot, Sodastream Laurent Perrier. Photo: Ruben Steinum
Image 3: Freak on a Leash. Photo: Jon Benjamin Tallerås. Project in collaboration with Marianne Hurum
Magnus Myrtveit studied BA Fine Art at the Oslo Academy of Fine Art, his current work searches for deeper meaning in the act of browsing the internet and juxtaposes “cutting edge” technology with primitive techniques of making art in the consideration of ideas of impermanence in technology.
Siri Hjorth (1986) and Sebastian Makonnen Kjølaas (1985) are two contemporary artists accomplishing high performance, premium, award-winning works that are safe, healthy, and certified sustainable.
When Kjølaas and Hjorth first got married in the Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in 2016 - they had already been working closely on a series of artistic projects since 2009. They now live and work in Oslo. Their artistic output include ceramics, textile, watercolours, latex and eggs.
Hjorth recently had her solo show “Looner Mooner" at Nebbelux in 2016, and participated in the production of “From Butter to Margarin” in 2017, directed by Pernille Lindstad and organised by “Munchmuseet on the Move” at Gallery 1857 in Oslo. She works with textile, costume and performance, and generates an unpredictable and sneaky world - disturbingly erotic. She opened the National Gallery's new Middle East Wing with a performativ staging of the painting “Marriage in Hardanger” by Tidemann and Gude. Hjorth has shown her work at the Black Box Theatre, Kunstnernes Hus, and Kunsthaus KULE in Berlin. Graduated with a Bachelor in Visual Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2014.
In 2015 Kjølaas won the Debutant Prize at the Autumn State Exhibition. He has toured the country since 2016 with his solo show “On dry things” showcased at different Art Societies around Norway, including Hammerfest, Eidsberg, Haugesund, Volda and Trondheim. He is the artist and author behind “The Institute of Art and Crime” (2014) published by Torpedo Press. Graduated in 2012 with a Master in Visual Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
In addition to their praxis both Kjølaas and Hjorth hold positions at Prosjektskolen Art School, as Prorector and teacher. Together they have started the artist run spaces GAGO between 2009 - 2011, and SALT between 2011-2013. With Marianne Bredesen they have developed the project “Wittgenstein on Vacation” (2015 - 2019) supported by KORO, Art in Public Space Norway.
Kirsty Kross holds a Bachelors Degree in Art History from the University of Queensland and a Masters of Art in Context from the Berlin University of the Arts.
Her work has been featured in Bedfellows at Tate Modern London, The Partisan Cafe at The Bergen Assembly, Østlandsutstillingen, ONO and PINK CUBE in Oslo as well as in Berlin at Parkhaus Projekts, Galerie Crystal Ball and Galerie Walden. From 2000-2010 Kirsty Kross was a co-creator and performer in the music/performance group, Team Plastique and performed extensively across Europe and Australia at clubs and events such as Glastonbury, Kunstsalon Berlin and the closing party of the 2006 Berlin Biennale.
Kirsty Kross’ work combines performance, drawing, music and installation and deals with thehuman condition questioning appropriate adult behaviour and the relationship between the artist, artwork and audience. Her recent work deals with the attention economy, global economic and social changes as well as impending ecological doom. Kirsty Kross moved to Oslo in 2015 and is a board member of Performance Art Oslo.
Photographs by (from top to bottom) Miguel Lope, Thor Brødreskift, Zane Cerpina
Esra Duzen (1983) is originally from Istanbul, Turkey and lives in Oslo. After more than a decade of working in the insurance sector in Istanbul and London, she decided to study art and moved to Oslo to dedicate herself to becoming an artist full time. She currently studies Fine Arts at The Oslo National Academy of Art (KHIO).
Esra's passion in art comes from her strong belief in people and change. She incorporates themes of enlightenment and rebellion against oppression of all forms in her art. Her practice involves installation, painting and drawing. She is currently expanding her work to include digital and analogue animation.
Devoted to a critical media performance project entitled Black Hydra's Discharge Springs Forth Errantly From Her Many Mouths, emerging multimedia artist and producer Brandon Covington Sam-Sumana works to interrogate matters related to transience, narrative structure, and system metabolism. Their interrogations have spawned music projects, objects of generative design, forays into speculative finance, video, and visual art. Brandon was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
