WGDMCU Bemis Underground - Brittan Rosendahl's Portfolio

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What Goes Down Must Come

Up.

Bemis Underground. Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.

November 2nd through December 8th, 2012.

One of three juror’s awardees of the Bemis Center’s 2011 Regional Juried Exhibition, Omaha-based artist Brittan Rosendahl is presenting a group exhibition that features artists from throughout the country, in addition to his own work and collaborations. A graduate of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Rosendahl’s practice spans a variety of media, yet one constant can be found in his investigation of found imagery and the removal of references to their source. By stripping images of their context, the artist invites reinvention rather than fixed interpretation.

Brittan Rosendahl’s statement:

The catalyst bringing this enigmatic body of work together was a series of email exchanges between myself and curator/publisher Ashley Goodwin. After reading Nicolas Bourriaud's text Postproduction: Culture As Screenplay: How Art Reprograms The World, we both expressed feelings that lent support to some ideas while vocalizing objection to others. Two quotations from Bourriaud's text:

"To rewrite modernity is the historical task of this early twenty-first century: not to start at zero or find oneself encumbered by the storefront of history, but to inventory and select, to use and download."

"…the contemporary work of art does not position itself as the termination point of the "creative process" (a "finished product" to be contemplated) but as a site of navigation, a portal, a generator of activities. We tinker with production, we surf on a network of signs, we insert our forms on existing lines."

What Goes Down Must Come Up is a visual response to this email exchange. In this work I am attempting to bring together materials and examples that reference existing and familiar forms, movements and contemporary trends, which through a subtle refinement breathe freshness into their stale host.

In response to the honorarium gifted me in 2011's Regional Juried Exhibition, I have chosen to host a discussion on source material. On Friday November 2nd, the creative acts of Kianna Alarid Cameron, Will Anderson, Alex Bodell, Daecos Omoxi and myself will be presented, initiating a dialogue on referencing and the residue of cultures. What Goes Down Must Come Up calls attention to rich pools of information readily available for creative repurposing.The internet and flea market offer boundless spaces where expiring objects await a pensive consideration. With themes speaking to resurrection and a nod towards spiritual lift, What Goes Down Must Come Up encourages a conversation of remix, authorship, and an ever advancing realm of technology used both to expedite and amplify.