Care, Forgiveness and Advertising

But in Ole Martin Lund Bø’s piece, we see no company’s name. Instead, the words “Tilgivelse” (Forgiveness), “Nærhet” (Closeness), “Omsorg” (Care) and “Ømhet” (Tenderness) are prominent in their separate logos. The contrast between design and content is striking. It is perceived as a reminder of how rarely advertisements deals with human relationships, or consider feelings as other than something to be played on in order to sell products.

The prints make up the series Trademarks, and are reproductions of original, fluorescent “advertising signs” produced by Lund Bø. When the prints were purchased in 2002, the plan was that they should be moved around to the various faculties, but after a brief period at the Psychology Faculty that same year, the Trademarks remained in the Administrative Block.

Ole Martin Lund Bø (1973-) works as a curator and artist, mainly with photography and installations. His public art commissions includes decorations for the Oslo Central Station, and he took part in the Astrup Fearnley exhibition LIGHTS ON - Norwegian contemporary art in 2008, which presented the most important Norwegian artists from the past decade. Lund Bø often refers to mass communication and popular culture in his artworks. He is interested in how visual rhetoric is used to construct certain points of view, controlling what consumers think and want. Although he still works conceptually, in recent years Lund Bø has begun to explore a more playful and pictorial language. He seems to thrive when unobtrusively ironizing over society.