Chaos and Vandalism

[widgetkit id=13432]

The Norwegian artist Matias Faldbakken came to international prominence with his disconcerting, direct and provocative position, and he also made a name for himself as the writer of the literary scene with his “Scandinavian Misanthropy” trilogy. His art is based on an engagement with social norms in which he approaches popular culture with gestures that combine refusal and destruction with productive forms of chaos and vandalism – a strategy embodied in “Untitled” from 2010: the entire exhibition space is covered with the powder from emptied fire extinguishers. For his “Book Sculpture”, shown in Oslo in 2008 as well as at the 2012 dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, he went to a big public library and threw dozens of books from their shelves onto the ground, forcing the library users to wade through the piles of books to find something for the duration of the installation.

Matias Faldbakken is featured in SALT, Istanbul, Talks from January 14th to 16th 2014, and he is participating in the exhibition “The Crime Was Almost Perfect” at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam from January 24th to April 27th 2014, an exhibition that brings together over forty artists who cross the bridges linking art and the aesthetics of crime.