Bjarne Melgaard

Bjarne Melgaard (b.1967) has built a strong international reputation and achieved a distinctive position in Norwegian and international contemporary art history. He currently lives and works in NYC. He is known for making expressive paintings, drawings and installations, and these often include elements from the musical culture of Norwegian black metal, or from the sadomasochistic scene and other subcultures. His characteristic style and provocative themes render him a controversial yet highly-respected artist, and his work is well represented in the Astrup Fearnley Collection.

Rotations #2 includes two of Melgaard’s works on paper, both untitled.* At the bottom of both pictures we find the text: Recirculated Drawing 97/2002. Melgaard made these drawings on green paper in 1997. He framed and 're-circulated' them in 2002 by drawing directly on the protective glass. On the glass of one work, above the drawing, Melgaard has drawn a black figure with a halo. This figure with a black (bondage) hood, is a leitmotif in Melgaard’s art, and one of his many references to the visual culture of sadomasochism. The lower half of the glass is smashed; it looks like someone has punched it in anger, intending to destroy it. In the gap between the drawing and the glass, Melgaard has stuffed pink tissue paper. It sticks out through the opening and creates a surprising contrast. With these devices the work exceeds the threshold of its protective frame, and, as is often the case in Melgaard’s art, the resulting expression is chaotic and violent.

On the second drawing’s glass, Melgaard has written a text in black ink: 'Pictures are registering us, not the opposite…They observe all our comprimises, lies, fakeness and guilt We don’t watch this image, it watches us'. This sort of textual work is characteristic for Melgaard. His paintings and drawings usually include a fair amount of sloppy handwriting. The recurring linguistic elements are rich in literary, cinematic and musical references. Melgaard’s works can be experienced as chaotic and violent constellations of signs and fragments. They include drawing, painting, text, line, colour, representation and abstraction, assimilating all these artistic means into a seductive, offensive and rhythmic chaos. Due to his characteristic style and autobiographical approach, he has sometimes been compared with Edvard Munch and Paul Gauguin. The provocative contents, however (e.g., depictions of degrading acts), suggest a stronger affinity with artists like Paul McCarthy, Carroll Dunham and Martin Kippenberger. Meanwhile, the many subcultural references enable us to also draw a parallel to Gardar Eide Einarsson.

In January – April 2010, Astrup Fearnley Museum presented Jealous – a retrospective exhibition of works by Bjarne Melgaard. The exhibition featured many key works created from 1990 to the present, including several new paintings, installations and text-based works.


TK

* Both of these drawings have been replaced in the exhibition with two other drawings by Melgaard.