In his specially conceived installation for Paris, the layering of meaning and the permanent hybridity present in Melgaard’s works is dramatized by the display of his paintings on three different wallpapers created by Martin Kvamme and produced by Rolf Hoff and his company Signex AS, which transform the gallery spaces “in a very simple gesture", as Melgaard says. Two psychedelic wallpapers feature cinematic streams of fragmented photographs and drawings representing the protagonist of the exhibition, Elizabeth Wurtzel, together with other generational icons like Lydia Lunch or Heather Locklear. A third graphic wallpaper projects a selection of sharp quotes from Prozac Nation on the walls, as if sending arrows of thoughts into the future.

Melgaard embraces a clash of (sub)cultures through his exploration of a narrative beyond the concept of high/low, good/evil, where his family of invented characters evolve. By constantly pushing the boundaries, he challenges the perception as well as the social, sexual and psychological position of the viewer. Melgaard firmly believes that “the aim of art is to gain from exploring the negative spaces of a culture”. By tracing trips into the voids and organizing his seemingly chaotic universe, he creates a visceral language based on a visual dynamism that may connect relevantly with us as we negotiate the complicated, disruptive, challenging times we are living in.

* Bjarne Melgaard spells the name of Elizabeth Wurtzel in his own way: Elisabeth Wurtzel.

Bjarne Melgaard to participate in the AR festival “Unreal City” in London from 8th December to 5th January

As a multi-disciplinary artist embracing the innovative technologies and revolutionary fields of expression, Bjarne Melgaard has been invited to participate with a new AR production at Unreal City, London’s largest public festival of augmented reality art organized by Acute Art and Dazed Media from 8th December to 5th January. The relevance in these troubled times where many of the important cultural sites are all closed, was to reinvest the shared space of the city. Following Acute’s mission to democratise art bringing it to yet unexplored places, the festival features 36 virtual outdoor sculptures arranged as a walking tour along the River Thame by leading artists including Nina Chanel Abney, Olafur Eliasson, Cao Fei, Alicja Kwade, Koo Jeong A, Marco Brambilla alongside new and never-seen-before works by Darren Bader, KAWS, Bjarne Melgaard and Tomás Saraceno.

On this special occasion Melgaard has produced a new sophisticated AR animation work featuring new characters made from VR and then built out in AR but also some of his historic characters such as Octo or the Lightbulb Man that premiered at his first solo exhibition at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1997. “It’s like a crazy mini-retrospective of everything for ten minutes and freely available to all the visitors” Melgaard comments on this unprecedented experience that follows up his AR project The Trip produced by Acute Art in 2019 that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Daniel Birnbaum, Artistic Director, Acute Art said: “The arrival of augmented reality has given rise to a new immaterial art form and nothing could be more exciting for me as a curator than the opportunity to explore these possibilities with some of today’s key artists. The emergence of a new medium presents new possibilities for art and for the ways art can reach broader audiences. Join us in this voyage into uncharted terrain!”

To experience Bjarne Melgaard’s latest AR work as part of the exhibition Unreal City visitors are invited to download the free Acute Art app through which they can download the map, and view the works.

About the artist
Bjarne Melgaard first developed his neo-expressionist, gestural style of painting in the mid-1990s, often addressing marginal and subcultural phenomena to raise provocative and critical questions about society. He explores the darker side of humanity, such as self-destructive tendencies, deviant sexuality or fringe religious beliefs, pushing the boundaries of acceptability in order to probe social, political and ideological issues. His distinct iconography is influenced by Norse mythology, but also draws from popular culture, with references as diverse as the Pink Panther, Planet of the Apes, Symbolist painter Edvard Munch and author Elizabeth Wurtzel. His work across disciplines and media encompasses painting, sculpture, installation, fashion, literature, architecture, curating, video and augmented/virtual reality.

Melgaard's expressive, coloured canvases are executed in thickly crusted oil paint against a bright, often monochromatic ground. Many of these works also incorporate Norwegian or English phrases as a counterpoint to the imagery. The result is an intimately introspective body of work, filled with “personal archetypes” that reveal the artist's sustained investigation into an ultimate “embrace of male sexuality” as a riotous celebration tinged with angst. Although he does not consider himself an explicitly political artist, his work is rooted in an early identification with queer politics and identity from the 1970s and 1980s. He also engages with Munch's legacy in Norway, addressing similarly profound themes including sexuality, desire, alienation and death, although transformed into Melgaard's own idiosyncratic idiom.