UTSTILLING: KJETIL KAUSLAND - No holds barred / Submerged

A perfect blend of visual art and performance

Exhibition of photos from the series «No Holds Barred», «Submerged», some old, some never shown in Bergen, and some new. Kjetil Kausland has been photographing MMA-fighters for years. The photo-series «No Holds Barred» was first shown in Bergen Kunsthall NO5 in 2006. The catalog raised the following reflection: «1: No Holds Barred: all tricks are allowed, or in other words: no rules. I see it as a challenge: photography is a heightened state of (the act of) seeing and is to memory what writing is to thinking» (Arne Skaug Olsen).

Two years later this act of seeing was raised to an even more sublime state of expectation, shock and horrifying enjoymnet with the artists flesh and bone in the centre. As a once in a lifetime experience Kausland made it into the cage with a professional fighter. The match was all staged as «No más» in Teatergarasjen May 2008 with more than 600 people in the audience. There was a lot of fuzz in advance. As stated by Kausland back then: «It is clear to me that I must enter the visual room represented in the «No Holds Barred» series. ... I will now become the vulerable, the one under scrutiny form the voyeuristic eyes of the other. In this setting I will have few or no possibilities of controling my own visual apperance. I will succumb to the violence of the fight, ruled by fear, anger and potential panic.» «No Más» lasted for a whole evening, the fight itself for 9 minutes, and in it's amazing crossover between visual art and performance it was a major event that still stands out in our 30 years long history. The video bearing the same name has been shown at galleries all over. The performance was never meant to be repeated. Post «No más» Kauslands photos displayes a darker perception of these fighters. The aggressive narcissism, immediate presence, or radical transgression and the rest is no romanticism.

www.kjetilkausland.com