Tuesday 8 November 2011

Nathalie Djurberg

The Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg, is known above all for her animated films, which seem sweet and innocuous only at a first glance. In her art, Djurberg treats themes such as obsession, power, pleasure, desire, and violence. Djurberg and Hans Berg have created an installation for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Snakes Knows it’s Yoga exhibition is the largest overview of their work. The  installation is a project composed of sculptures and projections of animated films, the air filled with experimental music by Berg; the presentation includes ten earlier works from the period 2005-2010.
Nathalie Djurberg studied at the Malmö Art Academy and had solo exhibitions at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Prada Foundation in Milan (2008), the Kunsthalle Wien (2007), and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2009), and the Giò Marconi gallery in Milan (2010). The duo’s works are included in the collections of institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, as well as the Sprengel Museum in Hanover. In 2009, Nathalie Djurberg won the Silver Lion of the 53rd Venice Biennial. Here is an interview with the artists.

Djurberg’s animations bring to life stories and scenarios from the furthest reaches of her subconscious mind. The evil nature of her characters’ actions is somehow made acceptable and even humorous because they have been made from plasticine. In Dumstrut a lone figure stands in the corner of a room wearing a dunce’s hat. The same figure then appears in a domestic setting tormenting a cat. The work never attempts to hide the methods of its own construction, thus heightening the artificiality of the entire narrative. Djurberg offers no moral messages in her videos and seems to delight in exposing the viewer to the wickedness of her creations. (TATE Modern)