Tag: torbjørn rødland

Torbjørn Rødland – Poolside (2017)

At some point I am actually going to be able to compose something coherent on Rødland’s work.

Today isn’t that day–unfortunately.

Thus, as a place holder please watch this interview produced by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. (The circumspect way he speaks about his work sets my teeth on edge. His positioning of his art as an outcropping of an effort to find value in the banality of stock photography, along with the influence of Jeff Wall and his frustration with realism are astute observations; however, I’m more interested in how his work seems to be the inheritor of Nobuyoshi Araki’s mantle–except Araki obsessively and explictly explored the intersections between pornography and art from the position of a pornographer, Rødland’s work strikes me as an inversion of Araki’s M.O. I’m just not yet to a point where I can coherently explain my thinking on the subject…)

Source: davidkordanskygallery.com

Torbjørn Rødland – Kneefix (2010-2014)

Jens Hoffman on Torbjørn Rødland:

Tales of weirdos, bizarros and people just like us. The photographs of Torbjørn Rødland  are  strange  and  ugly,  they  are  repulsive,  perhaps  perverted  and  disgusting, somewhat  unpleasant  and  yet  they  are  also  familiar,  pretty  and  attractive,  simple and ordinary, maybe even erotic yet straightforwardly normal. We are caught in a rare mix of reactions, warm and intriguing, cold and captivating, giving us shivers and  comfort  at  the  same  time.  Everyday  items  and  situations  at  their  most  surreal and grotesque, beauties and beasts, terror and tranquility. Uncanny, eerie and per-verted transformations. The gloss of a contemporary fashion magazine and the horrors of Hieronymus Bosch next to one another, hand in hand, face to face. Northern Gothic lens sketches.An  octopus  wrapped  around  a  person’s  hand.  Facial  mask  made  of  plastic  over  a woman’s face. Red haired boy with marker strips on his shoulder and a broken arm. In a forest with hands wearing sneakers. Pair of legs bound together with string. Another body, sideways, gymnastics with the head against the wall, bleeding. High heel, leg and paint. Elbow pads on the floor. Syrup and napkins on the ground. Long dark hair, red and black ribbons, a beautiful girl and a pool. Black paper, white fabric and a bug.Is this here to grab out attention, fascinate and shock us on the level of the eye or are we looking at a fantastic world of true bizarreness hidden underneath our gardens, streets and houses and inside the depths of our souls and bodies? Is this what we will become or where we came from? Caricatures of ourselves or the real us?