Camille Norment per la Norvergia

Come ci informa il sito OCA sarà Camille Norment a rappresentare la Norvegia, al Padiglione Nordico,  alla prossima Biennale 

Press release 

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 perspective 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 historical 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 from 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 the object/space and the body of the viewer, and with the way the body is inscribed with meaning through its negotiation with its surroundings. 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 also 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. 

The official Norwegian contribution to the 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia is funded by OCA. Details about additional sponsorships and funding is forthcoming. 

For more information, please contact OCA's Tara Ishizuka Hassel.

About Camille Norment and the Camille Norment Trio 

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 electric guitar, Norwegian hardingfele, and the rare glass armonica. She has exhibited and performed extensively in cultural events and institutions, including MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), New York, NY, USA (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, CA, USA (2001); and The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY (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. 

Camille Norment Trio, composed of Vegar Vårdal (Norwegian hardanger fiddle), Håvard Skaset (electric guitar), and Camille Norment (Glass armonica), is a unique trio of voices who investigates the visceral qualities of resonance, noise, and overtone, creating music that enacts and deconstructs cultural and historical positions relevant to each of the instruments. Their performances are an organic movement between the composed and the improvised, creating a dynamic soundscape that defies a fixed genre reference. The Camille Norment Trio’s performance credits include The Kitchen, New York, NY; USA; Cleveland Museum of Art; Ultima New Music Festival, Oslo; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; and the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK). Their first release, Toll, is available on Prisma Records. Reviews of their work have appeared in The Wire, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Aftenposten and KuNordische Musik.

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 history.