Torbjørn Rødland

Oh My God You Guys

With generous support from Office for Contemporary Art Norway; Air de Paris, Romainville; David Kordansky gallery, Los Angeles, New York; and Eva Presenhuber gallery, Vienne, Zurich. 

Acknowledgements: Sylvie Winckler; Standard (Oslo), Oslo; Nils Staerk, Copenhagen, Rodolphe Janssen, Bruxelles.

Born in 1970 in Stavanger, Norway. Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA. 

The two photographs that open and close Torbjørn Rødland’s exhibition at the Consortium Museum represent a baby and an old man, respectively. The exhibition is designed as a journey leading from one to the other, namely from childhood to old age. It is therefore a highly narrative project, and for Rødland, an unusual approach to the concept of exhibition.

The exhibition highlights Rødland’s photographs in which two contradictory characters are featured. The artist often employs this type of “disruptive casting” to emphasize the oddness in the photographed scenes. The "scenario" created by the curator for this exhibition – titled "Oh My God You Guys" as agreed with the artist – takes the viewers on a journey from the dawn to the dusk of life, exploring sophisticated and troubled human relationships.

"Oh My God You Guys" unfolds across eight different rooms, with each featuring increasingly older characters – starting with the baby and progressing through children, teenagers, adults, and ultimately the elderly – and producing a large fresco reminiscent of Edward Steichen’s 1955 landmark exhibition "Family of Man" at MoMA.

— Éric Troncy