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BJÖRN MELHUS’ “STILL MEN OUT THERE” EXHIBITION TO OPEN AT THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL ART GALLERY “OPERATION ROOM”
American Hospital Art Gallery "Operation Room", will host the video installations of German artist Björn Melhus from February 25, 2009. The exhibition which includes videos such as "Still Men Out There", "Again & Again", "The Oral Thing" and "Deadly Storms" bears the signature of Curator Ekrem Yalçındağ and will be on show until April 19, 2009.
The exhibition which presents Melhus' works as "The Oral Thing", the exhibition's namesake "Still Men Out There" and other significant works selected from his portfolio also includes his recent creation, the 2008, multi-channel video installation titled "Deadly Storms".
The visitors will have the opportunity of weigh the artist's "classic" works in which he personally portrays a range of characters, against works such as "Still Men Out There" where the artist deliberately decide to redefine his own figure. This work stands out from the others with its singular stance and as an impeccable installation of synchronized sound and light.
In the exhibition, figurative works featuring the artist himself in diverse roles including a feminine one stand in the company of others, which the artist has created by reducing images to zones of abstract color. Indeed, both strategies are always present in Björn Melhus' works. Their absence however in certain of his works, is in fact unusual and carries consequences in terms of the general conceptuality of that work.
Melhus, for whom the American media culture is at once both captivating and repugnant, chooses to engage himself in things others instantly label as American "trash". With scrupulous care and progressively, he focuses on several styles, which include Hollywood films, TV news channels or talks show formats to exhibit before us, the manipulative might of the modern media.
"Again & Again" (1998) was created as a forthright response to the public debates on cloning and is perceived in a positive light as a process of multiplication, self-love and support while "No Sunshine" created only a year ago in 1997, emphasizes a reverse viewpoint. In this work, which involves the struggle of two bodies against the process of union, the desire for liberation of one, underscores the discord between the twosome.
Although these works which correspond to a certain phase in Björn Melhus' productivity dwell on issues of individuality and reflection of the self, this is less a discovery of the artist's own personality and more a sighting the rationale of the media and its impacts on our culture. In his work "The Oral Thing" from 2001, the artist treats the talk show format and the phenomenon of tele-evangelism and constructs a parody around them. This work openly displays in a hysterical crescendo, a compacted version of the inner rules and strategies of this format. The victim's assumption of the role of aggressor after undergoing a metamorphosis stands as a criticism both to the bizarre inner logic of the television media and the consequences born of the passivity the media imposes on the viewer.
"Deadly Storms", which deals with the conditioning of man, instigated by the modern media also generates terrible consequences. In this work, the machine-like and persistent repetition of arresting slogans, ring alarm bells while at the same time underlining the absolute vacuity, if not the impossibility of meaning.
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