Norwegian artists Gardar Eide Einarsson and Mette Tronvoll are exhibiting within the 17th Biennale of Sydney, 'The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age' taking place in Sydney from 12 May to 1 August.
Since its inception in 1973, the Biennale of Sydney has provided an international platform for innovative and challenging contemporary art from Australia and around the world. The Biennale is Australia’s largest international festival of contemporary art. The 17th edition of the Biennale will explore the connections between the visual arts and other art forms. The aim of the Biennale is to bring together work from diverse cultures on the equal playing field of contemporary art, where no culture can assume superiority over any other. Two Norwegian artists, Gardar Eide Einarsson and Mette Tronvoll, have been invited to the 17th Biennale of Sydney.
Gardar Eide Einarsson (born 1976 in Oslo, Norway, lives and works in New York, USA) makes works that use a particular stylistic approach to highly charged source material. He works in a range of media from painting to text works and from light boxes to installation. Eide Einarsson´s work has been exhibited around the world, in cities such as Brussels, Rotterdam, Glasgow, Istanbul and New York, to name a few.
Gardar Eide Einarsson will exhibit Black Flag With Hole, inspired by the Romanian revolutionary flag of 1989. Eide Einarsson´s exhibition will consist of a group of five black flags, all with their middle cut out, hanging from the old, industrial cranes no longer in use on Cuckattoo Island. In addition to Black Flag With Hole, Eide Einarsson will exhibit the work Liberty or Death.
Mette Tronvoll (born 1965 in Trondheim, Norway, lives and works in Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian photographer and video artist known for her striking photographic works in the portraiture genre. The subjects of Tronvoll's mostly colour, large-scale photographs are captured directly, with an almost candid approach, and are often pictured in natural environments. They refer to a tradition of documentary or anthropological photography, and draw from influences such as the Düsseldorf School. Mette Tronvoll has exhibited in numerous exhibitions internationally, including solo shows in Düsseldorf (2006), Stockholm (2005), Cologne (2002) and Berlin (2000).
Mette Tronvoll will show a selection of works from her series Mongolia (2004) and Rena006 (2006). Mongolia is a series of portraits depicting the Mongolian nomads and their houses, the ger or jurte. The portraits are taken outdoors, in the dry, monochromatic Gobi desert and indoors, in the colourful interior of the ger. Rena006 is a series of portraits taken at the military camp Rena Leir in Østerdalen, Norway. Tronvoll was allowed to portray a group of elite soldiers from The Norwegian Army Special Operations Commando with high-level competence within special and anti-terror operations, an environment where photography is normally strictly prohibited. Tronvoll exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA).
A recent publication, titled Mette Tronvoll, Photographs, will be sold at the MCA bookstore during the Biennale. The publication is the first monographic survey of the work of Mette Tronvoll.
Gardar Eide Einarsson and Mette Tronvoll's participation in the 17th Biennale of Sydney has been supported by Office for Contemporary Art Norway.