Stavanger, Norway
In a Nigerian folk tale that I read to my children when they were young, the sky was once so close people could reach up and take a piece whenever they were hungry. It eventually went far away, as punishment for bad behavior on the part of humanity, and people had to learn to grow their own food. In Anne Klovning’s deeply charming video, “When a piece of the sky pours in through my window,” the sky is again close enough to touch, in fact it spills into her studio and stays, caught in the window sash. Klovning pulls it, folds it, plays with it, hides underneath it, curls up in it and takes a nap, a visual feat achieved with clever use of a green screen and digital editing. All the while, she softly repeats a mantra in which she asks and answers the question of how best to make use of this special situation without letting fear take over. Having a piece of sky in your studio and trusting yourself enough to utilize it—that could be a model for art-making more generally.
—Lori Waxman, March 17, 5:03 PM