Jan Kjetil Bjørheim

Jan Kjetil Bjørheim was born 1968 in Norway. In 2003 he graduated from Goldsmiths College with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. He worked as assistant curator at MOCA London before moving back to Norway in 2007.

Bjørheim ran the Nordisk kunst Project Space until 2010, together with his artist partner Elizabeth Croft to great critical acclaim. He worked as a curator at Hå Gamle Prestegard (NO) until 2015 and at Kinokino kunstsal (Sandnes, NO) until 2018.

Bjørheim has exhibited both in Norway and internationally and has received support from the Norwegian Office of Contemporary Art (OCA).

WORK

”I see my art practice as an interdisciplinary exercise; that contains many different disciplines. These can manifest themselves through organisational, curatorial, performative or object-based treatments. I have a growing desire to expand my field of action, which arises out of an exsistensial wondering and sociological engagment.

Sometimes it feels purposefull to use text, sometimes action or materials. Recently I have used materials and found that they have developed my curiosity and given new and challenging contradictions between a refined aesthetic finish and the experience of a psychological exposure.

We all have our wonderings, places we burn, and the places we fizzle out. The belief that meetings, people and power create meaning and that life is great. Then it is over again, the concepts dies out, some fundamental perversion awakes. It’s like I lack the ability to preserve the pleasure, the greatness. It is in this space I work, in these cabinets I am looking. Sometimes I have genius by the tail, other times I see only walls. I am a collection of contradictions, power, lust, and a burning desire to be something.”