Blackboard

The work of the Norwegian writer and artist Matias Faldbakken (*1973) mixes a conceptual procedure with trivial gestures, vandalism and appropriation, poetry and pop-culture. His work "Untitled (No Comment/ AFV)", 2009, shown as part of the current series of video and film installations,  "One film, one week"  has been produced with a series of new works for the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen in 2009, and which he has brought together under the title «Extreme Siesta».

«Extreme Siesta» circled around the idea of artistic production as the practice of doing nothing and of negation – and this not without a fair dash of sarcasm. His sculptures, wall paintings and video works, for which he uses adhesive tape, spray paint, rough canvases and found footage, realise this concept precisely and radically. Faldbakken really sees art "as the opposite of work, non-productivity in a certain way. This is what I want to go into in St. Gallen: art as non-work. And art that is produced in a situation removed from the idea of work. The almost Debordian thought that a life dedicated to the work of negation is a life dedicated to the negation of work is twisted into a cozy formulation of 'art-as-extreme-non-work'."

A particular kind of modification of material, containers and left-overs from entertainment culture is applied in Faldbakken's video work "UNTITLED (NO COMMENT/AFV)": the montage of scenes from daily news broadcast No Comment and an American "homevideo foul-Ups" show (American Funniest Homevideos), reveals Faldbakken's fascination for slapstick.

Matias Faldbakken (*1973 in Denmark, lives and works in Oslo) studied at the Academy of Fine Art Bergen and the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. He has had solo exhibitions at the following institutions and galleries (selection): IKON Gallery, Birmingham; The National Museum of Art, Design and Architecture, Oslo; Annen Etage, the annex at the Faculty of Visual Arts, KHiO, Oslo; Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2009); Simon Lee Gallery, London; Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin (2008); STANDARD (OSLO), Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2007). In addition Faldbakken has participated in numerous group exhibitions, recently at the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); Kunsthalle Andratx, Mallorca; Marvelli Gallery, New York (2009); Aspen Art Museum; Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden; Rekord, Oslo; Cosmic Galerie, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida; Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; Den Frie Udstilling, Copenhagen; Tel Aviv Museum Of Art (2008)

courtesy of the artist and Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin