1: planting a field with the same crop each year; repeated cultivation;
2: collaborative literary work; story made up by several writers working on it in turn
The creative collaboration between
Norwegian
artists
Arne Langleite and Sigbjørn Bratlie started in 2005. Thus
far it
has
resulted in 17 exhibitions and projects:
Recently, we have been working mostly in video, creating a series of interrelated films that deal with what we have chosen to call ”the artist as an antihero.” For each videopiece we create a fictional setting, in which a character taken from popular culture, – comics, sports, advertising, television or movies, – is used in order to examine philosophical questions of different sorts. First and foremost we have been interested in analysing the role and power of conceptual art in a world that is inundated by pop culture.Our ’antiheroic’ perspective involves the appropriation of a specific type of language: Using the cheap and easily digestible devices of mass entertainment and advertising, we still try to convey a message in our films. Sometimes, the film is more about this struggle to make sense and to be meaningful than anything else. Trapped inside a television war correspondent or a football sportscaster, the philosopher lacks the sufficient language to reach any profound conclusions. |
| ”I Can
Speak” video, 11 mins, 2007  A man wearing an oriental straw hat drives randomly around suburban Oslo neighbourhoods. Each sequence of the video is as long as each sequence on the CD that is playing on the man’s CD player: A “Teach Yourself Chinese” language course, in which the four tones of the Chinese language are introduced. “Axolotl” video, 12 mins, 2008  The stereotypical war correspondent in what is presumably a live news broadcast, reads the short story "Axolotl" by Julio Cortázar, from beginning to end. The short story tells of a man who, by spending too much time in front of the aquarium at the zoo, eventually turns into a salamander. “I versus I” video, 10 mins, 2008  The video consists of a series of sequences inspired by the ‘Spy versus Spy’ comic strip. Alternately, the two artists concoct elaborate ways of doing away with one another. The film is an allegorical exemplification of the trials and tribulations involved in collaborative art projects, a creative process that involves two minds, two views of the world and two sets of opinions. As a finished result, a collaborative art project will have personality issues, thus the schizophrenic title “I versus I.” “Wednesday Afternoon” video, 5 mins, 2007  The piece pays homage to Gilbert and George’s “Gordon’s Makes Us Drunk” from 1972. It includes the same Edvard Grieg soundtrack, but substitutes pipe smoking for gin binging. “Mutt Trilogy” video, 4 mins, loop, 2007  A video triptych that accompanies an installation consisting of an excerpt from a rural poet’s working space: His desk, chair, typewriter, ashtray and coffee mug. The video installation was made for a group show that dealt with masculinity in contemporary culture. Our take on the subject matter was antiheroic and anachronistic, squeezing the last drops out of an artistic ideal that is long since obsolete: Lyrical Romanticism. “Diplodocus” video, 15 mins, 2008  This video tells the story of an art performance in the guise of a sports event. There are four protagonists: The Young Man, who goes out into the forest to see the performance, The Last Man on Earth, a marathon runner sporting the number 6.736.680.214 who is the performance, and The Two Melancholic Sportscasters who, instead of commenting, try to explain their innermost feelings, their anxieties, regrets and losses. They recite French poetry, declare their love for their wives and interpret their own dreams, but the sports studio setting and the men’s head set and sportscaster moustaches make the confessions all seem artificial and hopeless. ‘Diplodocus’ is a film about the quest for meaning, perfection and unattainable spiritual fulfilment. “Amnesia” video, 11 mins, 2008  This is the story of a world-famous sculptor suffering from complete amnesia. Using Wikipedia, articles and reviews in Art Forum, he tries to piece together his former life and his former self. The video focuses on the necessity and/or futility of creating works of art. “Asperger” Slide projections, 2008  Shown on a loop using a slide projector, this series of nearly 30 locations in and around Oslo is the chronicle of an era and an artistic genre: Public sculpture and Modernist abstraction. While the photo project itself deals with art history, public art and Modernism, the artists, - as will be apparent, - are not in the least bit interested in any of this. They are purely interested in the GPS coordinates, which they have scribbled on the yellow poster they present to the viewer. “Pith and Bones” Photograph, 2007  Based on the British comedy series “Alas Smith and Jones,” this photograph is meant to accompany films and other projects in order to underline the humoristic and / or surrealistic tone in our work. As people familiar with this particular skit will remember, Griff Rhys Jones usually pretends to be unbelievably stupid, while Mel Smith desperately tries to explain something awfully mundane. “Kahuna” One photograph, 2008  The image is loosely based on a film still taken from an interview with Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut some time in the late sixties. The Nouvelle Vague directors’ white shirts and black ties have been substituted for an amateurish tribal outfit. Sporting geeky glasses and an effeminate cigarette, the conceptual artist / intellectual wouldn’t last two hours in the wilderness. "Tintin and Captain Haddock" Four photographs, 2010  This series of photographs is an attempt at dealing with strong emotions and serious social issues; love, compassion, jealousy, alcoholism, domestic violence and emotional despair - all depicted in the wonderful naivety and prepubescent matter-of-factness that characterize the world of Hergé. Strangely compelling as they are, the Tintin comic books present us with a world in which binge drinking never comes with a hangover, and where no one ever seems to ask any questions as to what lies behind the life-long relationship between a blond Adonis-like reporter and a middle-aged foulmouthed sea captain. Further viewing: www.sigbjornbratlie.com www.langleite.com Links: www.lottekonowlund.com www.kunstnerforbundet.no www.lufthavna.no/galleri www.art-claims-impulse.com www.sandneskunst.no www.galleriahuuto.net www.thegunladies.com www.uks.no www.kibkunst.no Contact: arne.b.langleite(at)gmail.com sbratlie(at)hotmail.com Please replace (at) with @ |