21 Apr 2010

Matias Faldbakken at Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp

Objectif Exhibitions presents Norwegian artist and writer Matias Faldbakken's first show in Belgium. Faldbakken (b. 1973) employs trivial gestures, vandalism and appropriation, poetry and pop culture, circling around the idea of artistic production as a practice of resignation.

What may at first come across as a flippant nod to minimal conceptualism, is in fact Faldbakken's sardonic take on art-making. Adopting subversion in itself as a formal gesture, the works on view are debunked contemporary sculptures; found objects suggestively vandalized rather than venerated by the artist's hand. Continuing an existing series, the new works are part of his ongoing interest in the urgency implicit to simple acts of detournement, while maintaining nonchalance to production. Here lies the central dialectic in Faldbakken's practice: If art is the opposite of work, then why work? Not to be mistaken for cynicism, Faldbakken's strategy remains productive and that is at the heart of its intriguing ambivalence.

The use of the inherent language specific to each media is another pivotal ingredient of Faldbakken's practice. Saving narration for his writing, and deliberately erasing it (often literally so) from his visual practice is a considered formal decision. Faldbakken's images are iconophobic, the execution of which is often a simple suppression of the essential content they potentially carry. Hence the visual always remains ubiquitous and the search for latent plots futile – there is no mystery to decode here.

Faldbakken's practice is a proposition for non-production brought to fruition, and is not to be misunderstood as a hermetic investigation into the role of the artist. Embracing the mantra of the poetic being antithetical to labour, Faldbakken ups the ante and puts his reticence on display. The exhibition thus beckons the question: Perhaps to subsume a consequential position within today's field of artistic production, one's earnest response (in the artist's words) should simply be 'thanks, but no thanks'?

Matias Faldbakken's most recent solo exhibitions include in 2010 THE HHILLS, STANDARD OSLO (Oslo), in 2009 Shocked Into Abstraction at Ikon Gallery (Birmingham), The National Museum of Art, Design and Architecture (Oslo) and Reena Spaulings Fine Art (New York); Extreme Siesta, Kunst Halle St. Gallen (Sankt Gallen), in 2008 The Way of the Bummer, Simon Lee Gallery (London) and Empty Glass, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch (Berlin). He is published author of Unfun (2008), Kaldt Produkt (2006), Snort Stories (2005), Macht und Rebel (2002) and The Cocka Hola Company (2001), amongst others. In 2005, he represented Norway at the Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennial. Faldbakken has upcoming solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Friedricianum (Kassel), Neue Aachener Kunstverein, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch (Berlin) and Simon Lee Gallery (London). Faldbakken lives and works in Oslo