The Psychopomp's Vestibule

PREVIEW 04.02.10, 7 pm.

EIRIK SÆTHER

The Psychopomp's Vestibule

Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I must have been delirious - for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I found myself at one time saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears,’ - and then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all - this fact - the fact of my invariable miscalculation - set me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more.

Eirik Sæther’s exhibition comprises various sculptural works trying to articulate his sensation of drunkenness that this agitated, tumultuous life has plunged him into. With such a multitude of objects passing before his eyes, he’s getting dizzy. Of all the things that strike him, there is none that holds his heart, yet all of them together disturb his feelings, so that he forgets what he is and who he belongs to.

--Galleri Annen Etage
The annex at Kunstakademiet
St. Olavsgt. 32, Oslo
http://gallriannenetage.blogspot.com