“Bomba” means both bomb and light bulb in Spanish. This dual meaning is found in Guernica, where we see a lone light bulb radiating a violent light at the top of the picture. Elgin, Siljeholm and Hjort Guttu have all worked with light in their art, and they will discuss light as a recurring modernist trope. Light can mean enlightenment, but can also be linked to the flash of light when a bomb or missile goes off, authoritarian ideas about purity or the sunlight that has been turned into a commodity in the gentrified high-rise city. With Guernica and the rise of fascism in Europe in the late 1930s as a backdrop, we invite you to an open conversation about the ambivalent status of light in historical and contemporary contexts.

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Dag Erik Elgin’s work is informed by an ongoing investigation into the history of painting, modernist ideals and contemporary visual culture. He has established a practice where the physical qualities of painting, historical analysis and personal production are constantly negotiated. His projects engage in an explorative dialogue with the history of art practices, interpretation, provenance and reception. Recent projects introduce text-based works and repetitive strategies as catalysts for exploring modernism's ongoing affair with current cultural and aesthetic representations. A parallel production of texts accompanies the visual investigations.

Elgin has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally at museums and institutions as Albertinum, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Dresden; The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden. His work is included in major public and private collections. In 2014 he was awarded the Carnegie Art Award first prize for his monumental work Balance of Painters, first exhibited at OSL contemporary in 2012. Elgin was a professor at the Academy of Fine Art - KHiO (2010-2016) and has contributed to numerous publications and projects addressing the position of painting within contemporary art.

Ane Hjort Guttu is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Oslo. She has produced and directed a number of short and longer films, and participated in film festivals such as MoMA Doc Fortnight, International Film Festival Rotterdam, CPH:Dox or Courtisane Festival Ghent. She was a festival artist in 2015 and has shown films at the Sydney Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale and the Vienna Biennale, as well as in a number of international art institutions. Guttu is also active as a writer and curator, and she is a professor of contemporary art at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Helle Siljeholm is an artist and choreographer based in Oslo, currently working on a PhD at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Her artistic practice encompasses film, installation, sculpture, choreography and performance. Her research project explores geological entities such as mountains and landforms, as well as their interweaving of people, nature and culture within geological time, the present and possible futures. Siljeholm’s artistic work, research and practice are strongly influenced by ten years of work in various artistic collaborative projects in the Middle East (Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan).