Asa Norberg and Jennie Sundén's Ongoing Project As We Go Along Draws from Josef Albers's Teaching Legacy

Asa Norberg and Jennie Sundén's ongoing work As We Go Along (2009–) draws inspiration from Josef Albers's lectures at the Bauhaus in the 1920s and Black Mountain College in the 1930s and 1940s. The project features low platforms with simple shapes crafted from inexpensive, everyday materials like plugs, sandpaper, and corrugated cardboard, where beige tape is cut into filigree and black plastic forms a delicate net. Albers, a renowned abstract artist and teacher, emphasized using cheap materials to foster transformation, a moment he termed Schwindel, meaning both 'hoax' and 'vertigo.' He promoted 'democratic design,' where all elements integrate harmoniously, a concept Norberg and Sundén echo through their meticulous attention to material quality and associations. Their objects, while lacking clear utility, exhibit apparent beauty, blending democratic design with lifestyle and magic. Since 2009, the duo has also run the project space Hit in Gothenburg, located in a historic wooden housing block from the early twentieth century, meaning 'in the direction of here' in Swedish. Hit has introduced artists like Falke Pisano, Rosalind Nashashibi, and Slavs and Tatars to Sweden for the first time, enlivening Gothenburg's provincial art scene. This article was published in the March 2012 issue of ArtReview.