Peanut Circuit, Oslo 2003
Gustav Vigeland The Monolith, Oslo Arve Rød sculpture for Peanut Circuit, Vigeland Museum Oslo
Peanut Circuit was a collaboration between Danger Museum (Øyvind Renberg and Miho Shimizu) and Arve Rød for the 2003 Norwegian Sculpture Biennial. Staged at the Vigeland Museum, it used sculptor Gustav Vigeland’s legacy as a backdrop to explore Norway’s current cultural climate.
The circular exhibition combined interviews with art-world figures and eclectic elements—a peanut fountain, giant peanut sofa, hand-sewn posters, relics, and a web survey on artists’ use of intoxicants. It probed how museums and institutions both enable and constrain art, while echoing Vigeland’s ambition to depict life’s cycle.
Interviewing Ann-Elise Pettersen Hyndøy Oslo City hallInterviewing Norwegian Arts Council’s Per Kvist Known for his small-scale works questioning the artist’s role, Rød created a piece highlighting tensions between individual ambition, collective projects, and institutions. The work has two parts: a magnetic pillar echoing Vigeland’s Monolith, and a banner bearing Marcel Broodthaers’ phrase “THIS MUSEUM IS A FICTION.” The magnet suggests both art’s aura and its potential risks to the exhibition space (VCRs, etc). By reusing Broodthaers’ statement, Rød links Danger Museum to broader traditions of institutional critique, while also commenting on how such critique has become a common, even strategic, stance in today’s art world.
Peanut Circuit, installation, Vigeland-museet, Oslo 2003