Artist Talk: Torbjørn Rødland

This event is free for students with ID and Aperture Members at the $50 level and above.

Aperture Foundation, in collaboration with the Department of Photography at Parsons The New School for Design, is pleased to present an artist talk with Torbjørn Rødland. Rødland’s photographs explore the symbolism of cultural mythologies and human nature. By staging common objects such as cotton buds, ropes of sausages, and high-top sneakers with the human body, he creates surreal images that elicit discomfort despite their ability to project a calm indifference toward the peculiarities depicted. In discussing the title of Rødland’s most recent publication, Torbjørn Rødland: Sasquatch Century (2015), Milena Hoegsberg, chief curator of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, writes, “The term [Sasquatch] has a cadence that is both foreign and familiar . . . [Rødland] is invested in neutered symbols, or more precisely in reconfiguring symbols or motives that have undergone shifts in values or that have been partially drained of their cultural power.”

Torbjørn Rødland (born in Stavanger, Norway, 1970) lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions at venues including Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2015); STANDARD (OSLO) (2015); Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2014); Algus Greenspon, New York (2013); Nils Stærk, Copenhagen (2013); Air de Paris (2012); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2010); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2010); and MoMA PS1, New York (2006). Rødland participated in the 48th Venice Biennale (1999) and has exhibited in group exhibitions, including those at Casino Luxembourg Forum D’art Contemporain (2013); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, France (2009); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2005); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2000). Forthcoming exhibitions include the Manifesta 11 biennial, Zürich (2016).

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Charina Endowment Fund, William Talbott Hillman Foundation, Inc., and the Board of Trustees and Members of Aperture Foundation.

Image: Rødland, Golden Lager, 2007, Chromogenic print