A project by Camille Norment
9 May–22 November 2015
Press and professional preview: 6–8 May 2015
The Nordic Pavilion
Giardini, Venice
Italy
www.oca.no
Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) is proud to announce that Norway’s contribution to the 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2015, will be developed by the artist Camille Norment. The project, which will take place in the Nordic Pavilion, will be inspired by states of dissonance—sonic, cultural and individual. The artist will explore the socio-political encoding of sound historically and in the present from a critical perspectives as well as reflect upon dissonance as a space for the creation of new and affirmative thinking. As Norment comments: “Sound, like experience, is fleeting but it leaves traces in the mind and in the body. As such it is historic, and a viable tool for anticipating what is to come.” The project is curated by OCA’s Director Katya García-Antón, with the collaboration of Antonio Cataldo, Senior Programmer at OCA. It is commissioned and organised by Office for Contemporary Art Norway.
Camille Norment’s practice includes sound, installation, light sculptures, drawing, performance and video and draws upon the artist’s experience in music, dance and the arts. Her research often crosses disciplines and is currently exploring the interconnections between sound, myth, taboo and science within the framework of art and history. Norment creates couplings of conceptual and formal inquiries in response to selected socio-cultural phenomena. Her work is largely concerned with creating experience through the relationship between object/space and the body of the viewer, and with the way the body is inscribed with meaning through its negotiation with its surroundings. Moreover it seeks to engage the viewer as a physical and psychological participant in the work, and as such, is interested in creating experiences that are both somatic and cognitive.
While highly concerned with aesthetic experience, Norment’s practice simultaneously spans the thresholds of the social and the political. Raising questions around race and gender, the artist excavates aspects of our history that have either been forgotten or repressed, as well as looks towards new forms of suppression that may be germinating in the near future.
For more information, please contact OCA’s Communication Manager Tara Ishizuka Hassel.
About Camille Norment
Camille Norment (b. 1970, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA lives and works in Oslo, Norway) works as an artist, musician, composer, and writer. She performs as a solo artist, with other musicians in selected projects, and with her ensemble, the Camille Norment Trio, consisting of Vegar Vårdal (Norwegian hardanger fiddle), Håvard Skaset (electric guitar), and Camille Norment (glass armonica). She has exhibited and performed extensively in cultural events and institutions, including MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), New York (2013); The Kitchen, New York (2013), Transformer Station (The Cleveland Museum of Art), Cleveland, OH, USA (2013), The Museum of Contemporary Art (The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design), Oslo (2012, the museum commissioned a new performance to accompany the exhibition tour in Norway including the cities Skien, Mandal, Eidsborg, Ås, Stamsund, Bodø, Hamar and Frøde); The Thessaloniki Biennale, Thessaloniki, Greece (2007); Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2009); UKS, Oslo (2004); Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden (2004); the Charlottenborg Fonden, Copenhagen, Denmark (2003); Radioartemobile, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2003); The Santa Monica Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2001); and The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York (2001). Amongst several permanent public artwork commissions, a permanent outdoor multi-channel sound installation was produced for the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK), Høvikodden, Norway, in 2011.
About the Nordic Pavilion
In 1958 Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn won the competition to design the Nordic Pavilion for the Venice Biennial. The building was completed in 1962 and has since been a space for collaboration between three nations—Norway, Sweden and Finland. Built on a plot between the pavilions of the United States and Denmark, it is centrally situated on one of the main arteries of the Giardini. Fehn was later awarded the prestigious Prizker Prize for architecture in 1997. In 2015 Norway will be in sole charge of the pavilion for the first time in its history.
About Office for Contemporary Art Norway
OCA is a foundation created by the Norwegian Ministries of Culture and of Foreign Affairs in autumn 2001 with the aim of developing collaboration projects in the cultural field between Norway and the international arts scene. The foundation aims to become one of the main organs in the international contemporary arts debate through initiatives such as seminars, publications and exhibitions, as well as by providing support to Norwegian artists for their activities in the international art arena. OCA has been responsible for Norway’s contribution to the visual arts section of the Venice Biennale since 2001.
