Torbjørn Rødland

Nils Stærk Contemporary Art has pleasure in presenting a one-person exhibition with Torbjørn Rødland.

The exhibition ‘Dark Overground Light Underground’ presents new photographic work by Torbjørn Rødland, as well as sculpture and film work that shows a new development in his practise. The artist works with established notions of terms and symbols which, in the works, take on an altered meaning. This exhibition focus on classic dichotomies like “good/evil”, and thus also notions of memory, conflict and morality.

Torbjørn Rødland engage in an open discussion of the established and the alternative - mainstream vs. sub- culture. The so-called ‘traditional’ is seen as a sub-culture and possible juxtapositions of diverse occupations such as baseball and religion, the invation of Iraq and exorcism, liberalism and satanism... Rather than building a series of images, Rødland circles his themes with various motifs, techniques and formats, and the viewer is presented with images of a group of signed baseballs, a videotape of George Bush’s favorite film “Field of dreams”, the tombstone of Øystein Aarseth of Norwegian ‘black metal’ band ”Mayhem”, a music-cassette of the Californian cult act Von, a classic black and white photography of an Estonian church, a film work entitled “The Exorcism of Mother Teresa”, and a sculpture: A full size anchor. The anchor poses as a concrete symbol in the sense that it, traditionally, represents ‘Hope’, yet this is altered within the exhibition and our reading of it blurred. Seen as pure form, liberated from its functionality, the anchor resembles a Christian cross turned upside-down, usually interpreted as a Satanic cross.

The music for Rødland's 2004-video “The Exorcism of Mother Teresa” is done by Kjetil Brandsdal, front- man in the Norwegian power-trio Noxagt. The film's voice-over is a heavily abridged and slightly rewritten version of the official roman-catholic ritual of exorcism. The idea of a possessed Mother Teresa can be understood as a paradoxical coming together of absolute evil and total selflessness.

Torbjørn Rødland (born 1970 in Stavanger, Norway) lives in New York where he holds a recidency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP). Rødland is currently participating in the exhibition ‘Greater New York’ at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City. Recent years he has exhibited at The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway, Air de Paris in Paris, France, and Stedelijk Museum CS in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Torbjørn Rødland

Born in Stavanger, NO, 1970
Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA 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.

Torbjørn Rødland: DARK OVERGROUND, LIGHT UNDRGROUND