Tobias Bernstrup – South of Heaven: Stockholm

21 August - 27 September 2014
Overview

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history” ~ Friedrich Hegel

 

Andrehn-Schiptjenko is pleased to present Tobias Bernstrup’s exhibition South of Heaven, his third solo show at the gallery. 

 

Tobias Bernstrup has been working internationally for more than 15 years and has been noted for his works influenced by computer games and his transgender musical performances. His work exists in the borderland between the virtual and the real, fascinated by the dystopian landscape. This is a theme he has explored in several media, from interactive computer games, animations and paintings to sculptures and performances.

 

In this exhibition he presents the video work South of Heaven, whose starting point is the painting Monastery Graveyard in the Snow by the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). The painting was destroyed in 1945 in the bombing of Berlin by the allies in the last stages of World War II. The only remaining evidence of the painting is a black and white photograph.

Tobias Bernstrup has recreated the landscape of the painting in the form of a three-dimensional landscape model, constituting the scene of the film. The film becomes a kind of memory from the fictive place that was once depicted in the painting, and a reminder that man’s dreams of ideal worlds time and time again end in death and destruction.

In addition to the video, the exhibition consists of a new series of sculptures and watercolour paintings.

 

Tobias Bernstrup’s work has been exhibited in many major museums around the world, such as Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Lyon Biennale, Shanghai Duolun MoMA, The Gothenburg Museum of Art, Uppsala Art Museum, Cairo Biennale, MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, Miami MoCA, Utah MoCA, Salt Lake City and Basel Museum Für Gegenwartskunst.

Installation Views
Works