Press release. Muratcentoventidue-Artecontemporanea. Kaja Leijon Wasteland

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Press release. Muratcentoventidue-Artecontemporanea. Kaja Leijon Wasteland"

Emil Jeffery Chambers
8 years ago
Views:

1 Press release Muratcentoventidue-Artecontemporanea Kaja Leijon Wasteland Galleria Muratcentoventidue is pleased to present Wasteland, the first solo exhibition in Italy by Kaja Leijon, a young Norwegian talented artist. The exhibition is supported by The Office for Contemporary Art Norway. Kaja Leijon was educated at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo and CalArts in the US. Leijon has distinguished herself with several narrative films, displayed in both art and film contexts. She has previously had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle in Mainz, as well as participated in a range of group exhibitions. Leijon recently participated in the exhibition Monitoring in Kassel and Videonale in Bonn and this year Rencontres Internationales, in Paris. Kaja Leijon s projects explore the transition between imagination and reality. Examination of the characters power of empathy and of how the characters relate to fiction are recurring elements in her films. The artist deals with how film as a medium influences the way we see and interpret the world. Wasteland consists of short episodes. Four different characters exist on different places at different times. The film has a non-linear narration; location, character and the situations, plays a greater role than plot and causality. The situations plays on certain images, in which the viewer perhaps can relate to having seen somewhere in a film: a woman running along a road in a deserted area, a curved road seen from the rear window of a car, they are recognizable images, images which one can associate and relate to, and which also play on the viewer memory of stored images. In Wasteland she wanted to further investigate some of the ideas, thoughts and themes already touched upon in her earlier film Resonances. She questions how fear appears and how the experience of being alone and threatened is affected by films we have seen. She wanted to create certain situations where female characters were alone in their surroundings, but also to create ambiguous situations offering both the notion of pleasure and fear at the same time, this to show the fine line going from one state to the other. The film investigates how fantasy and imagination is affected by film, and how people in everyday-life integrate images from fiction into their own lives. The film Screening is a collection of short clips from a photo studio. Some different young actresses are filmed in something that looks like auditions. They are a little nervous and observe what happens behind the camera, take instructions from somebody, we do not see. They like waiting to be activated, making approaches, sliding in and out of a role, a state of mind. It is precisely this transition between acting and reality Leijon is focusing on.

Leijon has distinguished herself with several narrative films, displayed in both art and film contexts.

2 The film creates its own kind of reality in which she explores how we create our roles and how we relate to them. Untitled (black and white) is in the same way as many of her other works dealing with how film influences us and the roles we find ourselves in. The form (on paper and installed directly on the wall) plays, or refers to film poster esthetics. Muratcentoventidue-Artecontemporanea Via G. Murat 122/b Bari Opening Saturday December the 15th, 2012 at 7 pm Period December the 15th January the 30th 2013 Opening hours from Tuesday to Saturday, from 5pm to 8 pm Info HYPERLINK "mailto:info@muratcentoventidue.com" info@muratcentoventidue.com HYPERLINK " KAJA LEIJON Kaja Leijon (Tromsø, 1980) lives and works in Oslo. EDUCATION National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo 2005 CalArts,Valencia, California 2004 Prague International Filmschool Nordland Kunst-og Filmskole, Lofoten SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2011 Kunsthalle in Mainz 2011 Trøndelag Senter for Samtidskunst, Trondheim 2009 UKS, Oslo 2008 Akershus Kunstnersenter, Lillestrøm

The form (on paper and installed directly on the wall) plays, or refers to film poster esthetics. Muratcentoventidue-Artecontemporanea Via G.

3 2004 Galleri 21:25, Oslo GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 Rencontres Internationales, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (upcoming) 2012 Høstutstillingen, The Annual National Exhibition 2010, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo 2012 Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm 2012 Where dreams cross, Stockholm 2012 Fotogalleriet, Oslo 2012 Madstun projectspace, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung 2011 Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn 2010 Kasseler Dokumentarfilm-und videofest, Monitoring, Kassel 2010 Høstutstillingen, The Annual National Exhibition 2010, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo 2010 KinoKino Senter for kunst og film, Sandnes 2010 Centrum Voor Jonge Kunst, Gent 2010 The Giant Bowl, Bislett Stadion, Oslo 2009 XI Call, Luis Adelantado Gallery, Valencia, Spain 2009 Videonale 12, Kunstmuseum Bonn 2009 Høstutstillingen, The Annual National Exhibition 2009, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo 2009 Gallery, dammit earth in my gallery! Østmarka, Oslo 2008 Høstutstillingen, The Annual National Exhibition 2008, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo 2008 Nordnorsken, Bodø Kunstforening 2007 Østlandsutstillingen, Tangen 2007 Organ Festival for Music and Art, Oslo 2007 Moloch! Open, Oslo 2006 Final Year Exhibition, Stenersenmuseet, Oslo 2006 John skies or Sally swims, UKS, Oslo

no 2011 National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung 2011 Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn 2010 Kasseler Dokumentarfilm-und videofest, Monitoring, Kassel 2010 Høstutstillingen, The Annual National

4 2006 John skies or Sally swims, Landmark/Bergen Kunsthall 2005 The Seduction of The Future, The Mountain, Los Angeles FESTIVALS/ SCREENINGS 2012 The Norwegian Shortfilm Festival, Grimstad 2012 Kasseler Dokumentarfilm-und videofest, Kassel 2011 Capalbio Cinema International Film Festival 2010 The Norwegian Shortfilm Festival, Grimstad 2009 Femina Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro 2009 South by Southwest Filmfestival 2009 Tromsø International Filmfestival En omgang kortfilm, Klingenberg Kino, Oslo 2008 E M Arts, Norwegian Film Program Tilts and Exits 2008 Rio de Janeiro ISFF - Curta Cinema 2008 International Short Film Festival Detmold 2008 Lucania Film Festival, Pisticci South Italy 2008 The Norwegian Shortfilm Festival, Grimstad 2008 FIFF, Femmina Internasjonale Filmfestival, Verdal 2008 Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, San Fransisco 2008 Center for Contemporary Arts Afganistan, Kabul 2008 Fuzue Arte e Cultura, Rio de Janeiro 2008 The Norwegian Embassy, Helsinki, Finland 2008 Cinemateca Brasileira, Sao Paulo En omgang kortfilm, Klingenberg Kino, Oslo 2008 Oslo Live Kino, Klingenberg Kino, Oslo 2007 MadCat Women s International Film Festival, San Francisco GRANTS

Southwest Filmfestival 2009 Tromsø International Filmfestival 2009 45 - En omgang kortfilm, Klingenberg Kino, Oslo 2008 E M Arts, Norwegian Film Program Tilts and Exits 2008 Rio de Janeiro ISFF -

5 2012 Project Grant, Vederlagsfondet 2012 Project Grant, Fond for lyd og bilde 2012 Oslo kommunes kunst- og kulturstipend 2011 Chr. Lorch Schive og hustrues legat 2010 Working Grant (3 yrs), Statens abeidsstipend for yngre/ nyetablerte kunstnere 2010 Exhibition Grant, The Arts Council Norway/ Statens utstillingstipend 2010 International Support, OCA 2009 Grant, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond (1 year) 2009 Project Grant, Vederlagsfondet 2009 Project Grant, The Arts Council Norway/ Norsk Kulturråd 2009 International support, OCA 2008 Project Grant, The Arts Council Norway/ Norsk Kulturråd 2007 Grant, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond (1 year) 2007 Project Grant, The Arts Council Norway/ Norsk Kulturråd 2007 Exhibition Grant, The Arts Council Norway/ Norsk Kulturråd

International Support, OCA 2009 Grant, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond (1 year) 2009 Project Grant, Vederlagsfondet 2009 Project Grant, The Arts Council Norway/ Norsk Kulturråd 2009

Farhad Kalantary Per Kvibergs gate 2, 0478 Oslo - Norway Born in Tabriz, Iran, 1962 Tel: +47 41421602 Email: farhad@atopia.no

Farhad Kalantary Per Kvibergs gate 2, 0478 Oslo - Norway Born in Tabriz, Iran, 1962 Tel: +47 41421602 Email: farhad@atopia.no EDUCATION 1996 MFA, Filmmaking, San Francisco Art Institute, SF, USA 1992 BA,