American Artist Duo Exhibits in Oslo

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Astrup Fearnley Muesum of Modern Art in Oslo will for the first time in Norway present a solo exhibition featuring the works of American artists Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecarin, both born 1981.

Since they met in 2000, the critically acclaimed artist duo has created large-scale video installations that examine the effects of technology and social media on identity formation and the mutability of language. Their expansive collaborative practice includes video, sculpture, sound and installation.

American Artist Duo Exhibits in Oslo
American artist duo Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecarin

Sculpture has always played a role in Fitch and Trecartin’s practice, both on and off the screen. Here the concept of “scripting” is foundational to the way the artists set the parameters for interaction, whether between humans, objects, or even environments, treating the source materials as words in poetic compositions.

Related: Watch Michael Jackson in Oslo

American Artist Duo Exhibits in Oslo
The artists’ expansive collaborative practice includes video, sculpture, sound and installation.

Astrup Fearnley Muesum of Modern Art in Oslo will for the first time in Norway present a solo exhibition featuring the works of American artists Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecarin, both born 1981.

American Artist Duo Exhibits in Oslo
Plaza Point, 2009

Since they met in 2000, the critically acclaimed artist duo has created large-scale video installations that examine the effects of technology and social media on identity formation and the mutability of language. Their expansive collaborative practice includes video, sculpture, sound and installation.

American Artist Duo Exhibits in Oslo
The Edge, Skinny 2008

Sculpture has always played a role in Fitch and Trecartin’s practice, both on and off the screen. Here the concept of “scripting” is foundational to the way the artists set the parameters for interaction, whether between humans, objects, or even environments, treating the source materials as words in poetic compositions.

Related: Watch Michael Jackson in Oslo

Fitch and Trecartin purposefully guide us toward a time when the connections between technologies and humanity have passed a milestone, but before the effects of this ontological change have been fully assessed. As Trecartin says: “I love the idea of technology and culture moving faster than the understanding of those mediums by people.”

American Artist Duo Exhibits in Oslo
Sculpture has always played a role in Fitch and Trecartin’s practice

Astrup Fearnley Museum will exhibit one of the artists’ room size “sculptural theaters” Plaza Point (2009), alongside a major presentation of Fitch and Trecartin’s sculptures. This is the first museum show to focus on their sculptures as autonomous works, placed in an indoor “sculpture garden” within the main museum space. The works, made from an overwhelming variety of traditional and non-traditional materials, are single figures or complex narrative groups that express a simultaneously grotesque and celebratory view of human nature.

Related: At the Edge in Oslo

About the artists

Ryan Trecartin (b. Webster, Texas, 1981) and Lizzie Fitch (b. Bloomington, Indiana, 1981) received BFAs from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004 and currently live in Los Angeles. Their collaboration has endured over 15 years producing works that have been shown at contemporary art centers and museums around the world, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; MoMA PS1, New York; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Francois Pinault Foundation at the Punta della Dogana, Venice.

About the museum
Astrup Fearnley Museet is a private museum of contemporary art, and has since its opening in 1993 been one of the most important art institutions in Oslo.

The museum moved to Tjuvholmen in 2012, beautifully located by the Oslo Fjord in a building designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano. The museum presents temporary exhibitions of international art, and houses the Astrup Fearnley Collection, one of Norway’s most important and most extensive private collections of contemporary art, with iconic works by artists such as Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer and Jeff Koons.

The exhibition opens 23 February and lasts through 20 May 2018.

Artist Duo Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin Exhibits in Oslo, written by Tor Kjolberg

Feature image (on top): Image Ready: Ryan Trecartin
Ready (Re’Search Wait’S)
2009-2010
HD Video, 26:50
Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee, New York

 

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Journalist, PR and marketing consultant Tor Kjolberg has several degrees in marketing management. He started out as a marketing manager in Scandinavian companies and his last engagement before going solo was as director in one of Norway’s largest corporations. Tor realized early on that writing engaging stories was more efficient and far cheaper than paying for ads. He wrote hundreds of articles on products and services offered by the companies he worked for. Thus, he was attuned to the fact that storytelling was his passion.