Bjarne Melgaard "Psychopathological Notebook" @ Karma Gallery in New York

Entering Bjarne Melgaard’s solo exhibition, currently on view at Karma gallery in New York, means entering a psychologically charged space. After passing through the curtain of quilted and stuffed sausages, printed with Melgaard’s drawings, and past the obstacle course of penises in the hallway the viewer is confronted with a large wall curtain made out of prints, stuffed pillows, and string. The adjacent walls are covered with Melgaard’s paintings, which he did as a response to Karel Appel’s Psychopathological Notebook (1950). Appel created his notebook after visiting the L’Art Chez les Fous exhibit in Paris, the International Exhibition of Psychopathological Art at the Sainte- Anne psychiatric hospital. Dissatisfied with the pamphlet that accompanied the exhibition Appel decided to draw over the published text. Melgaard’s paintings are the result of the artist’s own hand manipulating and covering Appel’s original drawings. The already highly expressive and charged drawings become further abstracted and frantic. Bjarne Melgaard "Psychopathological Notebook" will be on view until February 28, 2016 at Karma Gallery, 39 Great Jones Street, New York. text and photography by Adriana Pauly

Artist Bjarne Melgaard on His Upcoming Show 'Daddies Like You Don't Grow On Palm Trees' @ Sammlung Friedrichshof

We here at Autre have a bit of fascination with New York based, Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard. His art is brutal, poignant, poetic and always adventurous. After his controversial show at the Munch Museum in Oslo - entitled 'Melgaard & Munch: The End Of It All Has Already Happened' - Melgaard is paying a strange homage to Viennese Actionist Otto Muehl. The show, entitled 'Daddies Like You Don't Grow On Palm Trees,' also explores his relationship with his lover, who is nearly 30 years his junior. Here is what Melgaard says about his upcoming exhibition, "This show is about the failure and synthesis of a sculpture I made some 15 years ago called Light Bulb Man.The genesis of the show was to take that sculpture and simply wash it out into new models of materialization, mixed together with several collaborations as random references to my fashion collection about disappointment and the pleasure attendant to that whole concept. All the fabrics in the exhibition have been designed by Babak Radboy of SHANZHAI BIENNIAL, specifically incorporating images of my boyfriend, David Oramas, me and of Light Bulb Man.The fabrics then were given to the designers to dress nine new sculptures that are remakes of the Light Bulb Man. The show also clearly references MDMT and LSD as a significant inspiration for the show and looks at the healing aspect of these substances and how they can open up consciousness and how psychedelics can be, if one is open to it, a tool to enter your inner core. The "Bad Daddy" aspect of the show takes into consideration and contextualizes the fact that I am 48 and my lover is 21 and with all the different mechanics inherent in that attraction. It’s also a show based on seduction and intrigue along matters of age and time, themes that were fundamental to the original Light Bulb Man. The balance of the show will feature an improvised pop-up shop, soundtracks, and new paintings that will infiltrate the permanent collection of the Sammlung Friedrichshof." Daddies Like You Don't Grow On Palm Trees will be on view from May 16 to November 30, 2015 at Sammlung Friedrichshof, Zurndorf. 

Bjarne Melgaard at His New Exhibition in Helsinki

His first solo exhibition at Galerie Forsblom, entitled Puppy Orgy Acid Party, Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard, engages viewers with the rich colors and forms of his strange, macabre and heartbroken worlds. The new paintings’ compositions are dominated by organized chaos, which he has materialized via the momentum of creation: acrylic paint is poured on the floor and splashed directly onto the canvas. photograph by Rio Gandara

Early Man @ The Hole Gallery

The Hole presents a group exhibition entitled Early Man. Taking early art making (as in Upper Paleolithic) as a jumping off point, artists in this show use various strategies to create meaning, from the barely rudimentary to the highly sophisticated. Some of the artists include Aurel Schmidt, David Shrigley, Bruce High Quality Foundation, and more. Early Man will be on view until December 28 at The Hole Gallery, 312 Bowery, New York. 

Bjarne Melgaard at Luxembourg & Dayan

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New York-based Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard is a prolific, profane, and much admired polymath. In addition to paintings, drawings, films, furniture, and objects, he has created a thicket of novels. These exploded accretions of words and ideas, with their fevers of graphic violence, explicit sadomasochistic sex and unexpected poignancy, do not adhere to the conventions of dignified narrative. For Melgaard, the novel is a site where ideas both good and bad can proliferate freely, and where attention follows the upended logic of what actually takes place instead of what ideally should happen. Melgaard steadfastly refuses to locate the frontier between reality and fantasy. “I am more interested in telling a good story than a boring truth,” he has said.  Luxembourg & Dayan gallery in New York presents A New Novel by Bjarne Melgaard, an exhibition that coincides with publication of the artist’s latest novel, his first ever to be published commercially in English. Working closely with a group of leading designers and craftspeople, Melgaard is transforming the gallery’s Upper East Side townhouse into a completely immersive environment that uses his new novel’s story – its protagonist’s tortured infatuation with a doorman and the willing degradations of a surrounding cast of characters – as a point of departure to plumb further the through-line of his entire practice:  an exploration of the ways in which sex and violence dovetail with love and loneliness. A New Novel will be on view until December 22, 2012 at Luxembourg & Dayan, 64 East 77TH Street, New York, NY