Lene Berg
Exhibition, publication, film program
October 12, 2012–January 6, 2013
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter
Sonja Henies vei 31
N-1311 Høvikodden Norway
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Lene Berg
Exhibition, publication, film program
October 12, 2012–January 6, 2013
The title of the Norwegian film artist Lene Berg’s new film Kopfkino (2012) literally means head film, or film in the brain. Kopfkino was filmed over the course of two days in Berlin with a set of exceptional characters. The basic concept is simple: eight women exchange stories about their line of work, which is to fulfill their clients’ sexual fantasies. Seated behind a long table, as in Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper (c.1498), they are dressed as the various female clichés that they impersonate: a schoolgirl, a circus director, a general or a princess. The scripted conversation evolves in front of the camera without any direct intervention by the director. The women use their own words and experiences but the situation in which we observe them is staged. We are on a film set. Real experiences and actual stories come together in a universe of illusions, fictions and fantasies.
In addition to premiering Kopfkino, the solo exhibition centers around two other major film works by Berg—33 minutes (1999) and The Man in the Background (2006). The exhibition is accompanied by a publication (Henie Onstad Kunstsenter/Sternberg Press, October 2012), edited by curator Caroline Ugelstad, which includes essays by Sabeth Buchmann, Katerina Gregos and Dieter Roelstraete. A film program selected by Berg will run at Cinemateket in Oslo from October 23–November 14.
Born in Oslo, Lene Berg studied film at Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm. Her work has been shown at Whitechapel Gallery (London), Art in General (New York) and Midway Contemporary Art (Minneapolis). Berg has also participated in the Biennale of Sydney, Contour Mechelen and
Manifesta 8.
