For his 1st US solo show, Swedish artist Tobias Bernstrup will transform the gallery with a single projection of his new DVD titled “In the Dead of Night”. Continuing his use of computer game software and a fascination for artificial surfaces, fetishes, fiction, and transgender themes, Bernstrup’s slick and slightly disturbing video promises to mesmerize with both its audio and visual components all crafted by the artist. The animation gives the birds-eye view from a camera flying in slow-motion, traveling through a generic yet film noir-like city complete with desolate red-light districts, abandoned office complexes, and derelict building sites. Glowing neon signs and smoke are mixed with futuristic glass & metal buildings inspired by architectural structures a la Richard Rogers. The soundtrack contains material from Bernstrup’s forthcoming CD (only his second CD multiple) using the synthesizer of a member of 80s pop band Alphaville. According to the artist, “it will be a very dark, melancholic, frightening and beautiful work…”
Bernstrup’s videos have been included in the Standard Hotel exhibition in LA curated by Yvonne Force Villareal (2000), HOMEWRECKER (2000) and DISCO (2001) curated by Monique Meloche in Chicago, MONITOR Volume 1 at Gagosian in Chelsea (2001), and the Center for Contemporary Art in Kiev (2001). As far as Biennials, Bernstrup performed last summer in Venice through the IASPIS and had work in both the Biennale de Lyon and Tirana Biennale. He is currently featured in the www.whitneybiennial.com curated by Miltos Manetas and will have a show at the new Palais de Tokyo in Paris this April. Born in 1970 in Sweden, Tobias Bernstrup currently lives in both Berlin and Stockholm. The Swedish Arts Council has awarded Bernstrup a 1 year studio scholarship at ISCP in New York starting in September.
