The exhibtion
Any attempt to decode the images by Norwegian-born, Los Angeles-based photographer Torbjørn Rødland throws up new questions for the viewer. His work frequently unites disparate visual worlds in which increasingly mysterious and sometimes disturbing details emerge. At the same time, Rødland’s photographs arrest our gaze and captivate us thanks to their intelligence, peculiar lighting, their sterile modern setting, evoking commercial photography and pop culture, as well as their intuitive, erotic innuendos. It is precisely this mixture that gives them their strength. They reach deep into our psyche, conjuring up fears, urges, fetishes, fantasies, and longings. His images create an utterly unique atmosphere that straddles the familiar and the archetypical.
The artist
Torbjørn Rødland was born in Stavanger, Norway, in 1970. His photographs were most recently seen at the Serpentine Gallery in London. In 2016, he presented a public art installation as part of the Outside The Box program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Moreover, his work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo (2015), the Kunsthall Stavanger (2014), the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (2010), and MoMA PS1 in New York (2006). His work has also appeared in group exhibitions at the Manifesta 11 in Zurich (2016), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2000), at the 48th Venice Biennale, among others. He lives and works in Los Angeles and Oslo.

OPENING: Friday, 8th December 2017, 7 pm

mpefm GERMANY art press release