Jan Valentin Sæther | Inpermanence. Galleri Asur, Oslo, December 1

Our common cultural history is the departure point of Jan Valentin Saether's new exhibition, "Inpermanence." The title is a word play on the English "impermanence" as it consists of the adjective "in" and the noun "permanence." Thus we are not talking about the temporary, but of what remains after the context is lost—or the intrinsic meaning. In these new works Saether explores ideas concerning text and image, the continuing dialogue between the past and present, and our cultural roots that grow and spread out like colorless branches under the ground after the tree on the surface has been cut down.

The word alchemist is a term often used these days—almost inflated. Unfortunately, because when you are dealing with an artist, Christian mystic, explorer and gnostic like Saether, the term alchemist precisely describes his activities. Another word that springs to mind is magus. Jan Valentin Saether is an alchemist and a magus. In "Inpermanence" this becomes more evident than ever in his career.

Saether's background differs significantly from the background of most other Norwegian artists. He is more of an American or Angelino (slang for the inhabitants in Los Angeles) in exile than Norwegian. After more than twenty years in the City of the Angels he returned to Norway in 1995. His references are therefore quite different from the ones of other Norwegian artists of the same generation that have been living and working here in Norway all their lives. They are also different from those of the East-Coast Americans. In Los Angeles, California, the East meets the West, South-, Middle- and North America merge into a melting pot, there you'll find Hollywood glamour and Zen Buddhism, just to mention some impulses. And in Los Angeles the bishop seat of the Ecclesia Gnostica, Saether's spiritual home, is situated. In Norway, on the other hand, metaphysic is a word of abuse.

With a few exceptions (a couple of abstract paintings in the 1980s) Saether has remained faithful to the figurative path until now. Sculptures, drawings and paintings have all been executed in a classical style, since 1979 with emphasis on the narrative. It is therefore a courageous act he has committed here: "Inpermanence" is something completely new. Narrative, yes, but a textual narration. Texts presented partly hidden, broken narratives. We see texts—wrapped, veiled, fragmented, layer on layer. The painterly takes shape of ornamental patterns. Or maybe not just patterns after all? Patterns too communicate our present, past, and maybe also our future. They may resemble antique mosaics, or medieval church interiors. In these new pictures, influenced by geometry, shamanic magic, bits and bytes, paper and steel, we find traces of our cultural heritage—traces that are never completely available. The figuration is put on hold for the time being to explore this new field. The synthesis of the written word and the visual takes new until now unexplored ways.

Through the years, in addition to his painterly and sculptural project, Saether has also devoted himself to the study of Christian gnosis. He has studied the early written Christian texts, antique sources, the hermetic writings so eagerly read in the Renaissance, myths, history, astronomy, physics, and philosophy. He is a humanistically educated artist, and one of the most important sources of inspiration, in addition to gnosticism, is the Russian language philosopher Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1895-1975) whom Saether discovered in the early 1980s. Bakhtin's ideas about the carnivalesque, dialogism, heteroglossia, the grotesque, and polyphony, all have found resonance in Saether's own texts (1) and artworks. In "Inpermanence" the continuing dialogue and our Western cultural heritage have been drawn into the pictures in a more direct manner than before: The text itself is painted into the picture, partly veiled, partly exposed—as in a real dialogue. We only pick up and communicate parts of our thoughts. The conversation is incomplete, and we cannot guarantee that the message gets through no matter how clear the speech. The same goes for many of the antique sources upon which our civilization rests. Parts have been devoured by mice, parts have been censored. Some pieces have been used as fuel, and some parts have been erroneously copied, and been misinterpreted through history. But the dialogue continues. We communicate through millennia, across continents, between cultures. A cacophony (or polyphony, if you like) of voices from the past, present and future swirl through space on their way to unknown horizons. Saether here explores the veiling and unavailability of the written word.

The history of the Gnostics resembles "Inpermanence": In the third century the church fathers declared gnosticism a heresy, and in the Middle Ages the "infidels" (the Cathars) in Southern France were exterminated in the most gruesome, appaling way. And so, naturally, gnosticism disappeared from the face of the earth. But it still was present, even though invisible, and has operated in the hidden in European history and spiritual life until our times. Every now and then a bud sprouts and becomes visible, e.g. Marsilio Ficino (2) and the circles he frequented in the Renaissance Italy of the 15th century, the painter and poet William Blake, the literature critic and -theoretician Harold Bloom, science fiction author Philip K. Dick,—the artist and poet Jan Valentin Saether. And this almost invisible heritage of mysticism, esoteric knowledge of the Spirit, of God's presence, and of man's divinity, runs through history from Antiquity to the present day - expressed through hermetic and alchemist writings, Cabbala, etc. These texts have been passed on, copied, quoted and incorporated in ever new works. They keep on inspiring, giving insights and enlightenment to new people all the time. The works we here are confronted with, consist of fragments of such texts—among these we find the contributions of twentieth century Gnostics. But as in real life, they are not easily available, they are hard to spot. Saether has covered up, written upon, veiled and wrapped them. Broken fragments are all we get. While the core, the beginning is totally unapproachable: References to older texts are wrapped in small bundles, while the first traces of writing in history are encapsulated in steel envelopes. Totally invisible—unless you want to destroy the artwork by opening them. We are then left with the archaeologist's problem: Should we preserve the top layers and guess what is underneath, what came earlier - or should we for all times destroy the top layers to satisfy our curiosity about what existed earlier, what came first.

Hanne Storm Ofteland

NOTES

(1) See e.g. Jan Isak Saether. An Artist in Exile. The Viloshin Letters. Bruchion Press, Los Angeles 1992.

(2) Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) was one of the leading characters in the development of Italian humanism. Under the protection of Cosimo de' Medici he translated Plato's writings to Latin, as well as several Greek texts and alchemist writings that were important in Renaissance magic.