Knut Åsdam – The long gaze, The short gaze

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18 June – 23 July 2011

Between 18 June – 30 July 2011, DEPO is hosting works by Norwegian artist Knut Åsdam produced in the last two years. Abyss (2010) and Tripoli (2010) were recently shown at Tate Modern (2011) and at Bergen Kunsthall (2010) as well as in several film festivals. Åsdam and the curator would like to introduce these two films to the audience in Istanbul. The films are set in urban environments marked by dramatic change and they focus on disruption of perception and the distance between individuals, objects, places, and other inhabitants in their environments. In his works Knut Åsdam explores the limits of subjectification in urban and political space through sound, film, video, photography and architecture. ‘Language’, ‘life’, ‘gender’ and ‘struggle’ are four important elements in his works. The visual and linguistic narratives of both films featured in this exhibition focus on the ‘parallax gap’ in the relation between subjectification and space, and the range of vision between subject, object, space and gaze. The artist shares with the audience the aesthetics of the broken image produced by this uncanniness and disjointed spatial empathy.

Abyss, 2010
43′, 35mm to HD, 5.1 surround audio

Abyss was filmed in various locations in East London, at the Thames Gateway and on the outskirts of the area where the Olympic Arena is being constructed. The film portrays an urban reality that is affected in a variety of ways by migration: in the sense of the movements of human beings and the flow of money and power, and at the same time in the sense of a migration that takes place at another level – in the imagination. The 43-minute experimental film and installation work follows a group of protagonists and their more or less grip on language, materiality and meaning in an East London, way out of control of any singular agency.

Abyss was made possible by the support of the UK Arts Council, The Norwegian Film Institute, The Freedom of Expression Fund, Arts Council Norway and Bergen Kunsthall.

Source: www.knutasdam.net/index.php?/film/abyss-2010/

Tripoli, 2010
24′, RED to HD, colour, stereo

Tripoli emphasizes political history and architectural traces through the preserved relics of our recent past. In Tripoli in North Lebanon one finds the remains of one of the world’s most distinctive and ambitious construction projects, a stranded vision in the form of an international market place designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1966. On the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon in 1975 all the work on the extensive project ceased, and the buildings were never completed. The civil war not only suspended the work but it also meant that the fairground was used for military purposes, as ammunition storage, as a landing spot for helicopters and in other ways. Partly an architectural documentary and partly a schizoid theatrical drama, Tripoli attempts to leave space in the film for a story of violence, disjunction and the uncanny.

Source: www.knutasdam.net/index.php?/film/tripoli/

With the contribution of Bergen Kunsthall, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Goethe Institut Istanbul and Larves Artware Solutions.

Thanks: Fatih Tosun, Sergin Keyder, Hakan Kurşun

Discussion Program:
18 June 2011,Saturday, 17.30
Discussants: Knut Åsdam, Pelin Tan, Simon Sheikh, Tuna Erdem

1 July 2011, Friday, 17.00
Discussants: Didem Danış, Tuna Kuyucu, Jean François Perouse

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