Catalogue > At random

Isolated from the outside world, grotesque figures negotiate the pandemic state of emergency using language quotes from end-time movies. The video evokes fear, loneliness, illness, as well as threat and defense scenarios. Or: Several bizarre creatures reminiscent of human beings find themselves huddled away in squalid basements, at safe distance from the outside world. Speaking in selected quotes from doomsday films we observe them in various stages of despair, loneliness and sickness reflecting the pandemic state of affairs.

Bjørn Melhus In video art Bjørn Melhus has developed a singular position, expanding the possibilities for the critical reception of cinema and television. His stories have narrative structures formed by the fragmentation of the levels of image and sound. His practice of fragmentation, destruction, and reconstitution of well-known figures, topics, and strategies of the mass media opens up not only a network of new interpretations and critical commentaries, but also defines the relationship of mass media and viewer anew. His collages of rhythmic language and sound include almost incidentally the techniques of the video clip and trailer culture, although Melhus quotes neither pop music, nor does he engage in any lifestyle propaganda. His works expose the mechanisms of commercialization and rebel against simplification and global cultural standardization. His European view of American culture and of the global and trivial branches of mass culture is determined both by fascination as well as by a deep scepticism, by the longing to get away and by homesickness. Bjørn Melhus (born 1966 in Kirchheim/Teck, Germany) studied at the Brauschweig School of Arts in Germany and 1997/1998 with a DAAD grant at CalArts filmschool. In 2001/2002 he participated in the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP in New York). Since 2002 he lives and works in Berlin. His works have been shown and awarded at numerous international film festivals and he has held screenings at Tate Modern and the LUX in London, the Museum of Modern Art (MediaScope) New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris - amongst others. His work has been exhibited in shows like The American Effect at the Whitney Museum New York, the 8th International Istanbul Biennial, the 54th Biennale di Venezia, solo and group shows at FACT Liverpool, Serpentine Gallery London, Sprengel Museum Hanover, Museum Ludwig Cologne, ZKM Karlsruhe, Denver Art Museum – to name just a few. More info: www.melhus.de