FIGHT ISSUE VOL. B – TORBJØRN RØDLAND

TORBJØRN RØDLAND externalizes intangible inner struggle

To live is to struggle. Norwegian art photographer Torbjørn Rødland is facing one lately as well: to breathe life and layers into pictures from a tiny 35mm film camera with a fixed 40mm lens. While the world is getting more complicated, we find ourselves in between two extremes: embracing the change and leaning into its challenge, or try and go against it. Norwegian-born, Los Angeles-based artist Torbjørn Rødland decides again and again to lean in, nurturing his fascination by observing and reconfiguring the banal without allowing changes to limit him or his transpluralistic photography practice. Blending the mundane with the surreal, Rødland explores topics such as identity, sexuality and the human experience, finding new context to replace traditional ones. While his photography appears to almost follow conservative rules, it is the dynamic cultural perspective and symbolic interest of Rødland’s work that creates extensive layers, leaving the observer in a fantasy space where no questions can be satisfied by one answer only. By capturing everyday objects, fractured landscapes of the human body, and motifs adjusting to different cultures and contexts, Rødland likes to look at photographs as a tool to bring something into consciousness. He wants his work to be meaningful to a wide range of people, to create a conversation everyone can join since it allows the coexistence of so many different perspectives.

Rødland’s photography is so confident in being photography that the artist considers his work as almost provocative to the art world. He finds the perfect balance between controlling and staging what is in front of his camera as opposed to just reacting to what is in front of him. Yet he still leaves space for it to deliver something that is on a new level beyond his sketches. Besides portraiture of public figures such as Nicolas Cage, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson and Paris Hilton, Rødland also created various series about consumer culture, the human condition, concepts of beauty and youth culture. Rich with his symbols and confident in his intuitive practice, Rødland creates photographs that are inexplicably seductive. They have been exhibited or held in the collections of the most renowned museums and galleries, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the LACMA, Serpentine Gallery London, C/O Berlin, the Fondazione Prada, the Venice Biennale and many more. Numéro Berlin has admired the work of the Norwegian artist for a long time. For the magazine’s second issue, our first collaborative moment, Rødland created a beautiful family album series in his studio in Los Angeles. Other series including a story starring Toni Garrn followed. For this issue, Rødland curated a series that reflects his vision on the issue’s theme: to live is to struggle.

How intuitive and how analytical is your practice?

It’s very intuitive. I do not try to understand what I’m up to till after the images are made. But then there is time for some analysis.

When you edit images for a series, what is the process for you?

I could have been a lot more subtle with this edit for Numéro Berlin, but I was looking for photographs with an explicit externalized struggle. Often, I look at candidates in the form of digital image files in a desktop folder, and then I remove the ones that do not thrive in that company. It is another largely intuitive process.

Can you tell us more about the work The Ring? And what is the story behind Oxygenating and The Tube?

In my mind, the younger hand does not want to wear the ring, but other readings are also possible. A related pressure is being applied in Oxygenating, but here the younger character seems to have the upper hand. I will not pretend to fully understand The Tube, but there’s an internal grappling in it that makes a lot of sense to me. Oxygenating was photographed in London, and the others were made in Los Angeles. The backstory is quite constant: I’m inviting one or more collaborators to a space or location so that we can try out a few alternative situations for the camera. There is of course a long tradition in the arts for externalizing an intangible inner struggle and splitting it into two distinct characters in physical conflict. Sometimes, one of these was dressed in white and the other in black. Maybe that is one reason why it’s a monochrome magazine this time?

You lived in Europe for a while. Now that you are back in LA and are also a father, how has this changed your perspective on life?

This last European stay was only for a year, largely spent in Berlin, but also in part in Arles, Florence and London. The sessions tend to be a bit shorter now; I’m not sure what else has changed. More of my adventures are experienced through one or both of my sons. That’s probably it.

Did your photographic practice change as well?

I do not know how influential geography was to the recent counterintuitive downsizing in film format – from large and medium to small – but I did change my entire photographic language in early 2024. This revision is not at all reflected on these pages, by the way. Besides the possible German influence, I was driven towards photographic grain by the overly smooth and grainless Midjourney-generated pictures I found and feasted on online.

How political do you want your work to be understood? Do you feel you want to be more political in today’s chaotic landscape?

It may become a more preferred means of entry, but as of now, the political remains one out of many possible interpretive frameworks. It has never been absent. It’s always somewhat relevant, but presenting pictures that clearly or exclusively ask for a political read would, to me, feel a bit thin.

What makes a good photograph for you in these days? What are you mostly drawn to, lately?

Lately, I’m drawn to full figure scenes with characters in emotionally evocative pictorial spaces. Good photography is everywhere; what is truly exciting is great photography – but please don’t ask me to define or describe.

What was the most extreme series you have worked on that has challenged you as an artist and as a human being? Would you even separate these “identities”?

I wouldn’t, no. Hmm, what has been challenging? The Burning Skulls, where I photographed dead human bodies in the process of cremation… this was a memorable and life-changing series. But pictures like the two Self-Castrations from 2020 were, in fact, less frightening and extreme to me than when I took on backlit cuteness in the late nineties.

This issue talks about our inner wars and conflicts determining the ultimate way we look at life. What would you consider the biggest struggle of your life?

Probably to not let who I am perceived to be get in the way of what I make. People tend to be very socially oriented and that’s not the easiest for me. I’ve had to learn to verbally share feelings and be a little hospitable.

What was your latest struggle as an artist?

The latest and current struggle is to breathe life and layers into pictures from a tiny 35mm film camera with a fixed 40mm lens.

What are you currently working on? And what are your big 2025 projects and plans?

There’s a brand new solo zine titled Mimes, published by Zolo Press. There will soon be a museum solo in Shanghai called Songs for the Sun, and after the summer, a gallery solo in Vienna titled Slow Life Strategies.