Sverre Wyller is among our most unanimously celebrated artists. He is known for his raw, brutal sculptures created from scrap metal. Haugar Museum in Tønsberg is now showing a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of this important artistry. As I stroll up towards the Haugar ridge, I see a large procession of eager museum visitors on their way to the opening. And I wonder why we continue to be so fascinated by these industrial and mechanical forms. Isn’t this really yesterday’s metaphor? For the futurists at the beginning of the 20th century, the mechanized industry was the symbol of a future full of exciting new possibilities. They embraced this new era with a lyrical and aggressive energy. In mature modernism, the machine became the most dominant symbol of modern life. The master shows himself in the limitation. Here we see how Wyller, with very simple moves, creates a powerful and strong expression with both form power and material variation. I like how the wood is upright, while the metal depicts a kneeling form. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen I like the chaotic, but also disciplined in this sculpture. The paintings in the background are clean cut and strong in form. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen On the trail of lost time, Sverre Wyller’s strong art shows up beautifully in the halls at Haugar. The first sculpture that meets me as I come up the stairs is created by a mighty steel dragon bent with superhuman strength to form an open oval shape. The sculpture indicates a dynamic movement in the air. Sverre Wyller was born in Norway in 1953. He is known for his paintings, graphics and sculpture, often in monumental formats with an abstract idiom. He has studied at the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Wyller is also known for incorporating found and recycled material into his works. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen I like the duality of the expression, the play between the polished blue and the rusty, tarnished plinth. But also the tension between the form as an almost weightless movement in the air and the raw heaviness of the materials. I can’t quite agree with myself whether the small bracket on the right is an element he should have removed, something that binds the shape, or whether it is the little finishing touch that gives the whole the necessary tension it needs. This is often the case at Wyller. I often stop and ponder over elements that both disturb, but also stimulate. RAW AND INDUSTRIAL BEAUTY: I like how this glossy, shiny blue sculpture also has a vulnerable and quite soulful expression. I liked how from the side it looks like a meeting between two thin, strange figures on a bridge, where one is clearly more powerful than the other. Very often Wyller’s works carry such possible narratives. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen Maximalistic minimalism A completely different type of sculpture is “Vigeland” (2021). It looks like a classic piece of wrought iron brutally pressed together. The title makes it obvious to interpret the expression as an artistic patricide. Gustav Vigeland is our foremost wrought iron artist, and a towering figure in Norwegian sculpture history. The classical tradition he represents is smashed here with the forces of industry. Sverre Wyller’s form expressions are rich and complex. He combines a wealth of different references in his works. SUMMARY: The scrap metal that has been destroyed is the remains of something that was once a reality and that carries a lot of potential stories and memories. The pictures in the background are a bit more like color samples. The authoritarian central division gives the eye few opportunities in the experience. Either you look at one color or at the other, or you try to look at both at the same time. It’s not musical, and exciting. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen In the exhibition, for example, there are three approximately square cubes created from compressed scrap metal. One is pale sea green, one is yellow and one is red. The sculptures are part of a whole and form rhythmic repetitions. The very series of identical modules can make us think of Donald Judd’s minimalism. But Wyller’s elements are so full of movement, variation and references to reality with their jumble of lines and surfaces that they naturally go far beyond the concrete literalism we associate with minimalism. RHYTHMIC PLAY: The play between the roughly hewn wooden volumes against the unpolished metal creates an effective contrast. The sculpture has a beautiful rhythmic play. I am less excited about the pictures hanging in the background. I think they manage the references to the post lock the reading and close the images to us as sensory experiences. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen Refined paintings Sverre Wyller not only creates sculptures, he is also a painter and graphic artist. In the exhibition at Haugar, we get a rich insight into this part of his artistry. As a visual artist, he creates strong, sensual paintings, but also more pop-inspired expressions, where words, letters and symbols are interwoven. In the sober paintings, we see how Wyller constantly makes clear choices of form. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen The work is well thought out and thoroughly worked out. I have more doubts about the picture on the wall in the background. Here I think it gets a bit repetitive and monotonous, and it never gets really interesting visually. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen I like this corner location. Here, Wyller creates a play between space and surface, between abstraction and figuration, and between different layers of paint. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen Among other things, we can experience a whole series of works in which he refers to the Norwegian postal service. The danger of working so explicitly with references is that it binds the interpretation and closes off the sensory experience of form. I like better the pictures that are free and open. At Haugar, a series of dark images are shown, where black, deep blue and brown dominate. Here we see the same supreme presence and powerful sense of form that characterize his sculptures. WARM COLOURS: I like the minimal and restrained at Wyller. This work could still have benefited from something being highlighted at the expense of something else, for example one or two of the red squares being somewhat larger than the others. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen The images are refined and discerning in their colouring: He creates exciting games with structures and surfaces and balances the horizontal against the vertical. Eternal explorations of form One of the things I like most about Sverre Wyller’s art is that everything he creates, despite long experience and great expertise, still has something exploratory and investigative about it. Although the industry is a basic reference for him, there is never anything in his own process that tastes like production. When Sverre Wyller – a hundred years after the flowering of machine aesthetics – creates his expressions from cut iron pipes and twisted steel beams, it is no longer a contemporary image. I understand it more as a melancholic reflection on a reality that is long gone. Although the project in this way has something retrospective about it, I experience it as anything but outdated. news reviewer Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen Title and artist: Sverre Wyller Curator: Erlend Hammer Institution: Haugar art museum City: Tønsberg Period: 28 September – 30 December 2024 Estimated time: 40 – 60 minutes Published 08.10.2024, at 09.05
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Sverre Wyller at the Haugar art museum – news Culture and entertainment
