Torbjorn Rodland
dal 15/9/2010 al 29/10/2010
Segnalato da
15/9/2010
Torbjorn Rodland
Michael Benevento, Los Angeles
At first glance, Rodland's photographs seem overtly simple: an aquarium, a shed, a cassette tape. However, rather than empty vessels, Rodland stages his images as reenacted sites, as venues where an image that may initially seem familiar is informed and complicated by what the artist calls a 'mythological richness,' almost becoming abstractions.
Michael Benevento is pleased to announce A Black Ant Traveling, the second Los Angeles solo exhibition by Norwegian photographer Torbjørn Rødland.
At first glance, Rødland’s photographs seem overtly simple: an aquarium, a shed, a cassette tape. However, rather than empty vessels, Rødland stages his images as reenacted sites, as venues where an image that may initially seem familiar is informed and complicated by what the artist calls a “mythological richness,” almost becoming abstractions.
While Rødland’s images tempt readings filtered by geography or subculture, they simultaneously suggest nuanced detours. In Black Tape, Rødland deals with Black Metal (a sub-genre of heavy metal) at an elemental level. He photographs a cassette tape, a blunt object of related ephemera countering the overtly visual nature of Black Metal and photography itself. The camera – like a tape – can record whatever, as well as meaning.
The alluring nature of heavy metal imagery invites generic classification, but Rødland’s practice is less about participating in the edification of photographic classifications and instead pointing to instances where graphic tropes become destabilized from their expected visual modes. While Norse mythology locates the beginning of life in fire (and ice), Rødland locates the end of life and the body in flames, in the crematoria furnaces of the intensely rich and vibrant Burning Skull, a series of color photographs hung in the back gallery. As the body - a most familiar object - is cremated, the skeletal remains are abstracted, suggesting an enchanting though haunting reflection where something can be at once foreign and familiar.
A Black Ant Traveling invites discussion of classic categories of the portrait, still life and landscape while italicizing the notion of these as specific formal conventions with generic elements that when underscored can provide other temptations.
Torbjørn Rødland is the author of several books of photography, including: White Plant, Black Heart (2006) and I Want to Live Innocent (2008). He is the subject of numerous international solo exhibitions at venues including the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (Norway), Air de Paris (France), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (Japan), Nils Stærk (Denmark), Standard Oslo (Norway) and P.S.1 (New York). He lives and works in Los Angeles and Oslo and will be guest lecturing at CalArts on October 30th.
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 16, 6-8PM
Michael Benevento
7578 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles
free admisison