Participating artists

Artists
Koos Buster
Caroline Charef
Maria Barnas
Rolf van Rooij
Stijn Stumpel
Minnie Fawcett-Tang
The Snifferoo
tomastmt
Yair Callender
Clara Rojas
Wassim el Hodayebi
Anne Berg
Trang Hà
Trang Lê
Donny Ronny

Curator

Jessica Kuhn

About

Everyone is a virgin in the eye of the future. There is always something that one has never done before. Virgins is Kunstbar’s first exhibition and the start of a new beginning. The exhibition toys with expectations and associations surrounding the word ‘virgin.’ It invites viewers to think, maybe even overthink, connections, seek explanations, and uncover the contexts that justify each work’s presence in the show. The curator posed herself the challenge of finding, sometimes literal, sometimes metaphorical, “excuses” to have certain works be part of the exhibition—be it the first time some artists show something to the public, experimenting with new methods, or simply having the star sign ‘Virgo’.

In interplay with the seducing aspects of the word, “Even the curator must now get undressed to make åpeople buy art,” and lure them into an exhibition—a humorous commentary on the current funding cuts in the arts and the increasingly commercialized cultural landscape. With subtle playful deception, Virgins reflects on these issues while inviting audiences to consider the tension between art’s purity and its commodification.

For everything, there is a first time. It often comes with uncertainty, projections, and hopes. This exhibition wants to celebrate all that encompassing positive tingle that belongs to doing something new.