Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

The film Please Kill Me is a personal expression of my own account around the time we live in, pointing out one of our greatest challenges: The market and capital domination in the world. When economic growth is the strongest driving force, we experience increasing economic, social, cultural and, not least, enormous environmental challenges. It is no longer human, ideological or religious ideals that govern, but material growth. The feeling is this: We find ourselves not in a crisis resulting in radical restructuring, but are caught in a loop of repetition and denial, where genuine change appears impossible. In no way whatsoever does art stand outside this static situation. It stands in the midst of it and has no power to act as a genuine opposing force. The constant striving for ‘the new’ cannot expel the feeling that things are at a stand-still; the admonishment to establish micro-utopias in the increasingly sleek art institutions proves merely to repeat the imperative that each and every person should tend his or her own garden – or network; the mantra to summon ‘critical discourse’ does not hinder one’s thoughts from first and foremost revolving complacently around oneself. We know we are sitting in the same boat, and since we all know it is sinking, we try to sit as still as possible, so that at the very least it sinks slower. This is the artist`s confrontation with himself, the art scene and a world gone crazy spinning around itself, trapped in an eternal loop of repetition. In Please Kill Me the staged models have been assigned the same roles as they play in reality: In the gallery space you find the artist, curator, critic and gallerist frozen in a position where they are confronted with the allegation that art is dead.

Crispin Gurholt (b. 1965) is a Norwegian artist based in Oslo and Berlin. The density of his work reflects his versatility and the range of his studies, which in turn are essential to the creation of the highly composite universes of his Live Photos. Gurholt studied at the National Academy of Art in Oslo and The New York Film School SCE. He also has a background in scenography and directing. Since 2012 he has been teaching at The Art School of Rogaland in Norway. His Live Photos represent the sum of a wide-ranging expertise that, combined with social comment, presents a compelling picture of our time. Crispin Gurholt has an international reputation. His work and installations have been shown in Venice, Rome, Paris, Berlin, London, Copenhagen, Turin, Madrid, Cologne and Havana, as well as a number of major Norwegian art institutions. Gurholt is a receiver of the Norwegian Artist Grant since 2010.