Sissel Tolaas RE________

Over several decades, Tolaas has developed a unique artistic practice that challenges the idea of the artwork as a physical object. Ever since the late 80s and early 90s, she has been deeply interested in observing chemical processes and the topic of change. Her works and projects do neither have a beginning nor an end, but are always in flux. Early in her career, these processes were generally formal, experiments and mathematical calculations that explored how different materials affect and are dependent of each other. Over the years, she has moved away from the realm of the physical and the visual towards that of the senses as tools and the immaterial as information. As early as the 1990s, she was creating works that focused on olfactory phenomena and reactions by exposing audiences to air currents and smells from various sources. At her studio and chemistry lab in Berlin, she is researching the complex topics of smell while exploring smell as a medium of artistic expression. Her investigations range from in-depth research and analysis, to the archiving and synthetic (re)production of smell molecules and structures. Tolaas has built up various archives of smellrecordings, an archive of 10,000 smell molecules, and Nasalo, a unique smell lexicon, so far containing 4,200 terms and expressions. In 2004, she founded the SMELL RE_searchLab Berlin (supported by IFF Inc.) a laboratory that has collaborated with a number of scientific institutions around the world. With an artistic and scientific practice that addresses the sense of smell rather than sight and hearing, Tolaas activates a different type of engagement and perception in her audiences. All of the works on display are site-specific, developed or reworked especially for this exhibition. The exhibition explores the full breadth of a complex yet direct and intuitive researched based artistic practice, through which the concepts of process, time and change run like a unifying thread. Sissel Tolaas lives and works in Berlin. Her projects have been shown internationally at biennales, museums and institutions including MoMA in New York, the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, Dia Art Foundation in New York, California College of the Arts, and Tate Modern in London. The exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museet is the largest presentation of Sissel Tolaas’s art to date. In 2022 it will move on to the United States, where it will open August 19 at ICA Philadelphia. Curator: Solveig Øvstebø ________ Entrance ticket (Liquid_Money_1): Instead of an ordinary ticket, each visitor will receive an ampoule containing a chemical simulation of the smell of money. With this, guests can return to the exhibition as often as they like. Sauna (Liquid_Money_2): Liquid Money_2 can be experienced in the floating sauna moored to the quayside just outside the museum. The ampoule gives free access to the sauna Tuesday to Sunday 13:00 – 16:00. Here visitors can steam in the smell of money before jumping into the sea to wash off the smell. ________

REVIEWS:

The Top 10 Shows in the EU of 2021 — Frieze
Sissel Tolaas and the Politics of Smell — Frieze
Kunst stinkt … — Monopol
________ Exhibition Design: Formafantasma Graphic Design: Studio Joost Grootens