Torbjørn Rødland, »Striped Girl on a Pool Ladder«, 2018

Striped Girl on a Pool Ladder, 2018
C-Print on Kodak Endura Paper
35.6 x 28.6 cm
Edition of 25 + 5 AP, signed on back, numbered

In his new edition for Spike, the photographer Torbjørn Rødland (*1970, Norway) brings together three of his recurring motifs – stripes, a ladder, and a figure looking into the distance. In the mid-1990s, Rødland’s Rückenfigur – a figure turned away from the viewer – represented and mirrored both photographer and gallery visitor in front of an already mediated landscape. Ladders in Rødland’s work seem to represent consciousness evolving and devolving, and his consistent attraction to stripes may be a carry-over from his teenage career as a political and editorial cartoonist, putting black lines on white paper. Here and elsewhere, Rødland’s work makes use of discarded symbols, forms, and aesthetic ideals – including beauty itself – in an attempt to re-energize the art of photography in a world of memes.

Recent solo exhibitions of his work have taken place at Fondazione Prada, Milan (2018), Serpentine Sackler Gallery (2017), C/O Berlin (2017), Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2014), and elsewhere. Torbjørn Rødland lives in Los Angeles. 

 Read a portrait of Torbjørn Rødland in Issue 18, available here.