PORTRAIT PORTRAIT OF OF A A GENERATION GENERATION
Oslo
A sculpture is something that if it falls on your foot, it will break it.
— John Chamberlain
Sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting.
— Ad Reinhardt
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Matias Faldbakken entitled 'PORTRAIT PORTRAIT OF OF A A GENERATION GENERATION', curated by Marta Kuzma. This exhibition reflects Faldbakken’s continued interest in morphing a pre-existing language of forms into a deadpan vernacular. Through suspect negotiations and inferred mediations, Faldbakken sources iconic sculptures produced in the 20th century. The artist essentially de-skills modernist sculpture’s aspirations toward the aerodynamic, the minimal, and the abstract by acrobating revered works of ‘art’ into vessels for intoxication.
In his practice as artist and author, Matias Faldbakken displaces and reconfigures cultural signifiers in order to create a field of agitated idleness. In imposing a rupture to the original sequences of reading and interpretation, the artist points to the eradication of cause and effect in an alienated and onanistic society. In this particular project, made possible by the generous cooperation of The Vigeland Museum and with the Haukeland Family, Faldbakken prompts the sculptures and those viewing them to be slam dunked out of inebriated patterned regimens and to seek a rehabilitation of meaning.
About the artist
Matias Faldbakken has exhibited widely internationally and within Norway. His recent solo exhibitions include The Power Station, Dallas, TX, USA; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany; Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Belgium; Kunsthalle St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland and The National Museum of Art, Design and Architecture, Oslo. He participated in the Nordic Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy in 2005. As an author, his publications include Search (2011), Unfun (2008), Snort Stories (2006), Cold Product (2006), Macht und Rebel (2002), The Cocka Hola Company (2001). Faldbakken received his education from the Academy of Fine Arts, Bergen, Norway and Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
OCA would like to thank Bjarne Haukeland, Espen Haukeland and Anna Haukeland for the geneous loans of Arnold Haukeland’s Portrait of a generation (1969-70), Sunrise (1972) and Bølge (Wave) (1983); Jarle Strømodden and Trine Otte Bak Nielsen for the kind loan of Gustav Vigeland’s Ung pike med hendene foran munnen (Young girl with hands in front of her mouth) (1926-30); Kaja Tærud Westengen from the Oslo City Archives; NRK; Hamy Sveis AS and Anders Engnæs. The project production has been managed by OCA’s Asle Olsen with assistance from Erwin de Muer and the exhibition coordination overseen by OCA’s Tonja Boos and Antonio Cataldo.