“Where Johannessen is concerned, it is impossible to explain the many different actions that make up a performance in a clear or scientific way. Individual performances have layers of meaning, which build upon one another, until the last one loses itself in a meaning that can hardly be grasped. This is because they are built on insights that do not primarily belong to the mental and rational reality, through which we are channelled in schools and universities. Instead, they come from elements in our consciousness, which we have seen Gebser call the magic and mythic structures: structures from a time before man was completely separated from nature, and therefore lacked the detachment and distance that is necessary for the mental or rational structure. Man was still closely bound to nature, and this, among other things, was reflected in language”; a comprehensive retrospective that pays particular homage to Johannessen’s performance art, illustrated with a series of colour photographs, with an in-depth conversation between the artist and Helga-Marie Nordby, as well as an essay by Gunnar Danbolt.
Text in Norwegian and English, hard cover, 26,5 x 20,5 cm, 408 pages, (Bergen) 2018
ISBN: 978-82-8363-019-0
