Torbjørn Rødland
Born in Stavanger, NO, 1970
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US and Oslo, NO
Torbjørn Rødland’s photographs are produced through film-based cameras and chemical processing. His self-aware and often uncanny photographs, films, and books are saturated with symbolism, lyricism, and eroticism. They take on existing visual forms and genres from still lives to portraits to landscapes, but without the research tone of first-wave conceptual art or the ironic commentary of the subsequent Pictures Generation. In his work, Rødland attempts to seize and integrate truth, rather than deconstruct it, reflecting his inclination to delve into the problematic aspects of contemporary photography and the history of art. He probes popular visual languages in search of both spiritual and perverse qualities, aiming to prolong our engagement with both still and moving images. His works do not offer quick readings; instead, they invite us to explore the layered nature of each image, encouraging personal interpretations based on our cultural, political, and personal contexts.
Inserting his work in a wide array of contexts Rødland’s pieces can be found in art magazines, like Middle Plane and Numéro Berlin, and in the public sphear, like his large-scale installation on the side of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City. His work has also been the topic of traditional solo presentations at art institutions such as Serpentine, London; Fondazione Prada, Milan; MoMA P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; KIASMA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; The Contemporary Austin, Texas; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Kunsthal Stavanger, Stavanger; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.
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Photo: Emma Jenkinson
