Artists Talk: Torbjørn Rødland in Conversation with Philip-Lorca diCorcia

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On the opening of his new photography and video exhibition, Bible Eye, Norwegian artist Torbjørn Rødland invites American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia to join him in a virtual conversation, moderated by The Contemporary Austin’s Chief Curator Heather Pesanti.

Co-presented by the Photography + Media Area in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.

 
About Torbjørn Rødland

Torbjørn Rødland (b. 1970, Stavanger, Norway) makes photographic images that pointedly address their viewers, evoking a wide range of emotional and intellectual states. Curiosity, humor, criticality, artifice, reverence for the natural world, and romanticism appear throughout his work and often in the same image. Rødland also emphasizes the formal attributes of his photographs, pushing the medium toward modes of visual expression more commonly associated with painting, and forging links between 20th century art photography and 21st century approaches to image-making common to advertising and social media. Often prompted by non-photographic imagery that he transforms into real-world photographic subjects, Rødland portrays scenes designed to generate psychological reaction through his depiction of highly sensory qualities. The physicality present in the work is driven by his use of film-based cameras and chemical darkroom processes.

In 2021, Torbjørn Rødland will be the subject of a solo exhibition at The Contemporary Austin. Rødland has been the subject of many institutional exhibitions, including Fifth Honeymoon, a traveling exhibition produced by Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2018-2019). A selection of Rødland’s solo exhibitions include Fondazione Prada, Milan (2018); Serpentine Sackler Gallery (2017); C/O Berlin (2017); Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2014); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2010); P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (2006); and Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Stavanger, Norway (2003). His work is in the permanent collections of museums that include Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; Malmö Art Museum, Sweden; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Rødland lives and works in Los Angeles.

About Philip-Lorca diCorcia

American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia emerged in the 1980s as part of a generation of photographers who sought to explore and challenge the boundaries of the medium. Over the past three decades, he has become known for his meticulously planned and executed photographs involving a variety of individuals, including friends, relatives, anonymous strangers, pole dancers, and street hustlers, among others. Deploying his subjects in preconceived yet seemingly random positions and contexts, diCorcia’s images are far from candid snapshots, but rather explore the tension between the casual and the posed, the accidental and the fated. At once documentary and theatrical, his work operates in the interstices of fact and fiction.

Born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut, diCorcia attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and received his MFA from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1979. He is now a Senior Critic at Yale University School of Art. Since 2007, his work has been represented by David Zwirner.

In 2013, a major survey of diCorcia’s work was organized by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. The exhibition traveled internationally in 2014 and marked the most comprehensive presentation of his work in Europe to date.

Works by diCorcia are held in public collections internationally, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum De Pont, Tilburg, The Netherlands; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in New York.