Private
Feb. 20 - Mar. 3, 1993
Private" by Tony Oursler was installed for the first time in the entrance of a manor in the south of Norway. The space was originally designed as the hallway into a wealthy private house, a space into which the guest was invited. Nowadays, it is the entrance to a gallery for contemporary art, located in a country with dreams and prejudices as grandiose as its mountains. In the center of the room there is a majestic staircase with mahogany banisters leading to the second floor. Outside the main entrance there is another one. with a green glass window. It is in this space that Tony Oursler staged a family drama which reminded one of a degenerated soap opera, a play about the family as a ruin and individual identity as a prison. The art space became a playground, with props from second hand shops and where high technology is transformed into low. The hallway has six exits, but only one leads out of the house. Here, a dreaming doll was placed, leaning against the green glass. The doll looks into the house and tells his dreams. Jim Shaw's Dreams. His? Do the dreams belong to him? Are they given to him? How can dreams still be private when you tell them? Is art about play conducted in private, a privacy that we all have in common?
Tony Oursler was born in new york in 1957. He completed a BA in fine arts at the California Institute for the Arts, Valencia, California in 1979. His art covers a range of mediums working with video, sculpture, installation, performance and painting. Oursler's work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Documenta VIII, IX, Kassel, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Skulptur Projekte, Munster, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, the tate, Liverpool. The artist currently lives and works in New York City.