Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg: A Journey Through Mud and Confusion with Small Glimpses of Air

Lena Essling, Massimiliano Gioni, Patricia MacCormack, David Toop, 2019
Paperback

Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Berlin.

ISBN: 978-3-7757-4434-8

Dimensions: 21.70 x 28.00 cm

pages: 280 pp

Grotesque dreamworlds: the earthy, comic films by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg in a big retrospective of their work

Nathalie Djurberg (*1978) and Hans Berg (*1978) create animated worlds with objects, music and moving images – dreamlike realms where we might lose ourselves. Their playfully told fables hold both humour and darkness, putting any moral laws of gravity out of action. Djurberg’s vibrant stop-motion animations and sculpture groups accompanied by Berg’s electronic music form scenic installations in a surrealist vein. These intense chamber pieces enact fragments of memories repressed between innocence and shame, or feverish daydreams of role play and desire. The shadowy landscapes, sealed rooms and harshly-lit scenes of their films are inhabited by a group of possessed figures seemingly set on devouring one another. The exhibition and fully illustrated catalog describe an inner voyage, an attempt to make existence more understandable in a flow of impulses and impressions.